[comp.ai.digest] Military Funding

steve@vuwcomp.UUCP.UUCP (04/05/87)

In article <[A.ISI.EDU]31-Mar-87.15:25:11.DAVSMITH> DAVSMITH@A.ISI.EDU writes:

>Without the military applications,  who in the commercial sector
>would attempt to put together cooperating expert systems
>in real-time?  [ One could broaden the issue and ask 
>"Who in their right mind would..?"]


Here we assume that the only *possible* applications of real-time cooperating
ES are military ones. What is the major difference between a system which sits
in a fighter plane monitoring the pilots actions and one which sits in some
complex manufacturing plant monitoring the processes there? 

Too often military research is justified as the only way new ideas can
develop, the truth is that they are the only research programmes given
sufficient funds to develop new ideas. If research groups had the same level of
funding available for civil projects then they would be able to develop
real-time cooperative expert systems in domains which may actually be *useful*
to mankind.

Steve 						   
ACSnet: steve@vuwcomp.nz                           
UUCP:   {ubc-vision,alberta}!calgary!vuwcomp!steve