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- Path: sparky!uunet!bcstec!bcsaic!snake!rwojcik
- From: rwojcik@atc.boeing.com (Richard Wojcik,snake)
- Newsgroups: comp.ai
- Subject: Re: AI Winter Refugees
- Message-ID: <81353@bcsaic.boeing.com>
- Date: 26 Aug 92 16:12:03 GMT
- References: <x+an!9a.vere@netcom.com>
- Sender: nntp@bcsaic.boeing.com
- Reply-To: rwojcik@atc.boeing.com
- Organization: Research & Technology
- Lines: 34
-
- In article vere@netcom.com, vere@netcom.com (Steven Vere) writes:
-
- >o what were the causes of AI Winter?
-
- The recession, corporate downsizing, and the lack of government support
- for scientific and technological progress. Expensive, high risk ventures
- have been replaced by "safe" investments. Without government incentive
- and direction, American industry has tended to drift, whereas foreign
- competitors have continued to invest heavily in R&D, driven by generous
- subsidies.
-
- >o why has AI gone out of fashion in the US industrial sector?
-
- I think that it is mainly the cost and risk that has kept industry away.
- And the problems have not been entirely outside the AI community.
- The chief internal problem has been the technology transfer issue. AI researchers
- tend to be more academic than applications-oriented. AI solutions often
- involve a very big change in the way work is done, and there is a natural
- resistance to taking risks with unproven technology. Worse yet, AI
- researchers don't always understand the work processes that they set out
- to support. So they sometimes build solutions that must go looking for
- problems. Within a company, you might work your brains out on a customer's
- problem, receive high praise for your efforts, and find your project
- finished without any hope of going into production. The reason is that a
- flirtation was going on, rather than a serious proposal of marriage. With-
- out some concrete successes, you are sure to feel the budget axe at some
- point. This is not to say that there haven't been successes, only that they
- have been too few to give AI a reputation as producing a good return on
- investment.
-
- -----
- Disclaimer: Opinions expressed above are not those of my employer.
-
- Rick Wojcik (rwojcik@atc.boeing.com) Seattle, WA
-