Newman.es@Xerox.ARPA (04/06/84)
From: Ron Newman <Newman.es@Xerox.ARPA> [personal comment follows at end of article--RN] "DOD Strategic Computing to get $95M in Funding" Electronic News, March 19, 1984, page 18 by Lloyd Schwartz WASHINGTON (FNS)--A virtual doubling of the funds for the Defense Department's Strategic Computing initiative in fiscal year 1985--from $50 million to $95 million--represents the first step in providing "dramatic new computational capabilities to meet future critical defense needs," Pentagon officials reported to Congress. They said that, as computer capability evolves, "men and computers will operate as collaborators in the control of complex weapon systems." It boiled down to, they added, future "wars by computer," with the side possessing the superior technology prevailing. Dr. Robert S. Cooper, director of DOD's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), describing the program as well under way, explained it is using a new idea, employing multiprocessor architecture to reach for a new generation of computers with as much as 10,000 times the computing capability of hardware available today. The computers, endowed with artificial intelligence, will be capable of solving extraordinarily complex problems involving human beings, understanding speech and responding in kind, Dr. Cooper indicated to the House Armed Services Committee. They also will require a whole new system of prototyping, it was added. Dr. Cooper testified that while computers are already widely employed in defense, current computers have inflexible program logic and are limited in their ability to adapt to unanticipated enemy actions in the field. The problem, he noted, is exacerbated by the increasing pace and complexity of modern warfare. "The Strategic Computing program will confront this challenge by producing adaptive, intelligent computers specifically aimed at critical military applications," the DARPA chief continued. "These new machines will be designed to solve complex problems in reasoning. Special symbolic processors will employ expert human knowledge contained in radical new memory systems to aid humans in controlling the operation of complex military systems. "The new generation computers will understand connected human speech conveyed to them in natural English sentences, as well as be able to see and understand visible images obtained from TV and other sensors." Dr. Cooper noted DARPA has already demonstrated a limited voice message system in which a computer recognized and understood human speech to receive its commands. The computer was able to respond verbally, using synthesized speech, although it possesses a limited vocabulary. Another example of technological advancement, Dr. Cooper noted, was DARPA's recent success in applying a finely-focused ion beam in the maskless fabrication of integrated circuits. He said this work is continuing and "could result in a major breakthrough in ultimately achieving a large-scale maskless fabrication capability." Summing up, the DARPA chief declared "In the future, supercomputers with reasoning ability and natural language interfaces with military commanders will be able to participate in military assessment and may be able to simulate and predict the consequences of various proposed courses of military action. This will allow the commander and his staff to focus on the larger strategic issues, rather than have to manage the enormous information flow that will characterize the battles of the future." Dr. Cooper added that the balance of military power in the future "could well depend on successful application of 'superintelligent computers' to the control of highly-effective advanced weapons." ~~~~~End of Electronic News article~~~~~ Comments: 1. In the past, defenders of DARPA funded computer research have asserted that the military and civilian industry have the same goals, so that what's good for the Pentagon is good for the commercial market too. But now we have a program whose goal, in the Pentagon's own words, is to produce "adaptive, intelligent computers ***specifically aimed at critical military applications***." [Sorry if I'm injecting any personal bias here, but this seems to be a non sequitur. Past military research (e.g., image understanding) was also targeted at critical military applications; that didn't prevent it from also being useful or even critical to civilian industry. The strategic computing effort need not be different. All that has changed is the military's boldness in expressing its own importance, about which it may or may not be right. -- KIL] 2. Everyone knows how backward Soviet computer science and industry are, so who is he talking about when he refers to " 'wars by computer," with the side possessing the superior technology prevailing" ? Once again, the U.S. leads the way into a new round of the arms race. /Ron