From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: Petition for withdrawal of NRC report: Computing the Future
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Date: 6 Sep 92 15:39:40

In article <Bu6CEC.Ato.1@cs.cmu.edu> sef@sef-pmax.slisp.cs.cmu.edu writes:


   I haven't yet seen "Computing for the Future", so I have nothing to say
   (yet) about the substantive issues raised by John McCarthy et al.  However,
   I'm puzzled by their choice of tactics.  Why propose a petition urging that
   the report be withdrawn?  If this emminent group of computer scientists
   disagrees with the report, why not just produce their own paper in
   rebuttal, and try to rally AI researchers and policy makers to their own
   views?  Why suggest that the original report be suppressed?

   Did the NRC board try to present "Computing for the Future" as representing
   the views of the CS field as a whole?  If so, they are out of bounds; if
   not, then the report just reflects the views of its authors.  It seems more
   appropriate to argue the issues with these authors than to try to browbeat
   them into silence.

   -- Scott

   ===========================================================================
   Scott E. Fahlman
   School of Computer Science
   Carnegie Mellon University
   5000 Forbes Avenue
   Pittsburgh, PA 15213

   Internet: sef+@cs.cmu.edu

Indeed NRC reports do have an official and authoritative character and
are represented as not just the views of the authors but as the
conclusions of the National Research Council.  The National
Academy of Sciences was chartered in 1864 and one of its functions was
to give scientific advice to the Government.  Today it and the
National Academy of Engineering do this through the National Research
Council.  NRC reports are supposed to represent a consensus, or if it
is not possible to obtain a consensus, then a presentation of majority
and minority opinions.

The authors are not just a group of people who decided to get together
and write a book.  If they were, Fahlman would be entirely correct.
NRC committees are chosen by Boards of the NRC, in this case the
Computer Science and Telecommunication Board.  If the report is bad,
as we say it is, then it is entirely appropriate for the CSTB to
withdraw the report and arrange for another.

My opinion is that the Committee, which contains people who should no
better, were stampeded into an extreme position.  Some of them regret
some of the items we complained about.  What the CSTB, which approved
the report, will do is uncertain.  Copies of the full report are
available in every computer science department, because free copies
were sent to chairmen.  Also Raj Reddy at CMU has a copy, because he
is on the Board and was on the Committee.  Probably he has two copies.

Some people are pressing NRC to put the whole report on line.  As
stated before, we OCRed the preface and executive summary, and
they are available for anonymous ftp at sail.stanford.edu under
the name  pub/jmc/preface.tex.  The other files in that directory
also relate to the issue.


--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.