STEINBERG@RUTGERS.ARPA (12/22/83)
Yes, it is a sad fact about American society that a project like Strategic Computing will only be funded if it is presented as a defense issue rather than a commercial/economic one. (How many people remember that the original name for the Interstate Highway system had the word "Defense" in it?) This is something we can and should work to change, but I do not believe that it is the kind of thing that can be changed in a year or two. So, we are faced with the choice of waiting until we change society, or getting the AI work done in a way that is not perfectly optimal for producing commercial/economic results. It should be noted that achieving the military goals will require very large advances in the underlying technology that will certainly have very large effects on non-military AI. It is not just a vague hope for a few spinoffs. So while doing it the DOD way may not be optimal it is not horrendously sub-optimal. There is, of course, a moral issue of whether we want the military to have the kinds of capabilities implied by the Strategic Computing plan. However, if the answer is no then you cannot do the work under any funding source. If the basic technology is achieved in any way, then the military will manage to use it for their purposes.