Dehn%MIT-MULTICS@sri-unix.UUCP (12/24/83)
From: Dehn at MIT-MULTICS (Joseph W. Dehn III)
Person at University of Tokyo, editor of a scientific/engineering
journal, says computers will be used to solve human problems.
Person at DARPA says computers will be used to make better weapons
("ways of killing people").
Therefore, Japanese are humane, Americans are warmongers.
Huh?
What is somebody at DARPA supposed to say is the purpose of his R&D
program? As part of the Defense Department, that agency's goal SHOULD
be to improve the defense of the United States. If they are doing
something else, they are wasting the taxpayer's money. There are
undoubtedly other considerations involved in DARPA's activities,
bureaucratic, economic, scientific, etc., but, nobody should be
astonished when an official statement of purpose states the official
purpose!
Assuming the nation should be defended, and assuming that advanced
computing can contribute to defense, it makes sense for the national
government to take an interest in advanced computing for defense. Thus,
the question should not be, "why do Americans build computers to kill
people", but rather why don't they, like the Japanese, ALSO, and
independent of defense considerations (which are, as has been pointed
out, different in Japan), build computers " to produce profitable
industrial products"?
Of course, before we try to solve this puzzle, we should first decide
that there is something to be solved. Is somebody suggesting that
because there are no government or quasi-government statements of
purpose, that Americans are not working on producing advanced and
profitable computer products? What ARE all those non-ARPA people doing
out there in netland, anyway? Where are IBM's profits coming from?
How can we meaningfully compare the "effort" being put into computer
research in Japan and the U.S.? Money? People? How about results?
Which country has produced more working AI systems (you pick the
definition of "working" and "AI")?
-jwd3