Ideas That Created the Future by Harry R. Lewis

Author:Harry R. Lewis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Computer science; computer history; computer classics; computer science reader; algorithms; software; software engineering; computer survey; computer systems; science anthology; artificial intelligence; mathematics of computer science; Computer science history; origins of computer science; Aristotle; syllogism; logic; Leibniz; calculus; binary arithmetic; Ada Lovelace; Charles Babbage; Luigi Menabrea; difference engine; George Boole; Boolean logic; propositional calculus; David Hilbert; Hilbert’s problems; Diophantine equations; Alan Turing; Turing machine; uncomputability; decision problem; Howard Aiken; Mark I computer; Harvard; IBM; Harvard architecture; Claude Shannon; Boolean logic; simplifying circuits; Warren McCulloch; Walter Pitts; McCulloch-Pitts neuron; threshold logic; John von Neumann; von Neumann architecture; Eckert-Mauchly Computer ;Hamming code; Richard Hamming; error-correcting code; Hamming distance; Corporation; Arthur Burks; Herman; Goldstine; Vannevar Bush; memex; associative memory; Claude Shannon; information theory; bit; entropy; Alan Turing; Turing test; artificial intelligence; Maurice Wilkes; microprogram; microcode; Grace Murray Hopper; compiler; Univac; Joseph Kruskal; Kruskal’s algorithm; greedy algorithm; minimum spanning tree; Frank Rosenblatt; neural net; Norbert Wiener; cybernetics; machine learning; computer ethics; J. C. R. Licklider; human-computer interaction; HCI; John McCarthy; LISP; list structure; metacircular interpreter; Douglas Engelbart; HCI; human-computer interaction; mother of all demos; Fernando Corbató; IBM 7090; Grace Hopper; John Backus; CTSS; Multics; Ivan Sutherland; light pen; computer graphics; constraint programming;Gordon Moore; Moore’s law; exponential growth; Edsger Dijkstra; concurrent programming; Joseph Weizenbaum; chatbot; Edsger Dijkstra; semaphores; synchronization; mutual exclusion; structured programming; Volker Strassen; matrix multiplication; divide and conquer algorithm; C. A. R. Hoare; program correctness; program verification; Hoare logic; Edgar Codd; relational database; relational algebra; Winston Royce; waterfall model; software engineering; Stephen Cook; satisfiability; SAT; nondeterminism; NP-completeness; P vs. NP; Karen Spärck Jones; indexing; inverse document frequency; IDF; Richard Karp; NP-complete; satisfiability; nondeterminism; Dennis Ritchie; Kenneth Thompson; shell; Multics; Vinton Cerf; Robert Kahn; ARPANet; Internet; computer network; TCP/IP; Internet protocol; packet switching; Barbara Liskov; Stephen Zilles; object-oriented programming; Frederick Brooks; Brooks’s law; Robert Metcalfe; David Boggs; computer networks; Whitfield Diffie; Martin Hellman; public-key cryptography; Donald E. Knuth; algorithm analysis; big-O notation; Richard DeMillo; Richard Lipton; Alan Perlis; program verification; Ronald Rivest; Adi Shamir; Len Adleman; public-key cryptography; RSA algorithm; Adi Shamir
Publisher: MIT Press

22.6    Conclusions

Three principal conclusions may be drawn concerning the significance and implications of the ideas that have been presented.

First, any possibility for improving the effective utilization of the intellectual power of society’s problem solvers warrants the most serious consideration. This is because man’s problem-solving capability represents possibly the most important resource possessed by a society. The other contenders for first importance are all critically dependent for their development and use upon this resource. Any possibility for evolving an art or science that can couple directly and significantly to the continued development of that resource should warrant doubly serious consideration.

Second, the ideas presented are to be considered in both of the above senses: the direct-development sense and the “art of development” sense. To be sure, the possibilities have long-term implications, but their pursuit and initial rewards await us now. By our view, we do not have to wait until we learn how the human mental processes work, we do not have to wait until we learn how to make computers more intelligent or bigger or faster, we can begin developing powerful and economically feasible augmentation systems on the basis of what we now know and have. Pursuit of further basic knowledge and improved machines will continue into the unlimited future, and will want to be integrated into the “art” and its improved augmentation systems—but getting started now will provide not only orientation and stimulation for these pursuits, but will give us improved problem-solving effectiveness with which to carry out the pursuits.

Third, it becomes increasingly clear that there should be action now—the sooner the better—action in a number of research communities and on an aggressive scale. We offer a conceptual framework and a plan for action, and we recommend that these be considered carefully as a basis for action. If they be considered but found unacceptable, then at least serious and continued effort should be made toward developing a more acceptable conceptual framework within which to view the over-all approach, toward developing a more acceptable plan of action, or both.

This is an open plea to researchers and to those who ultimately motivate, finance, or direct them, to turn serious attention toward the possibility of evolving a dynamic discipline that can treat the problem of improving intellectual effectiveness in a total sense. This discipline should aim at producing a continuous cycle of improvements—increased understanding of the problem, improved means for developing new augmentation systems, and improved augmentation systems that can serve the world’s problem solvers in general and this discipline’s workers in particular. After all, we spend great sums for disciplines aimed at understanding and harnessing nuclear power. Why not consider developing a discipline aimed at understanding and harnessing “neural power”? In the long run, the power of the human intellect is really much the more important of the two.

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