Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ncrlnk!ncr-sd!hp-sdd!ucsdhub!ucsd!nosc!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ames!elroy!aero!venera.isi.edu!smoliar From: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: Grand Challenges Message-ID: <6358@venera.isi.edu> Date: 23 Sep 88 13:19:35 GMT References: <123@feedme.UUCP> Sender: news@venera.isi.edu Reply-To: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu.UUCP (Stephen Smoliar) Organization: USC-Information Sciences Institute Lines: 23 In article <123@feedme.UUCP> doug@feedme.UUCP (Doug Salot) writes: >In the 16 Sept. issue of Science, there's a blurb about the >recently released report of the National Academy of Sciences' >Computer Science and Technology Board ("The National Challenge >in Computer Science and Technology," National Academy Press, >Washington, DC, 1988). Just when you thought you had the >blocks world figured out, something like this comes along. > >Their idea is to start a U.S. Big Science (computer science, >that is) effort ala Japan. In addition to the usual clamoring >for software IC's, fault tolerance, parallel processing and >a million mips (ya, 10^12 ips), here's YOUR assignment: > >2) Build a machine which can read a chapter of a physics text and >then answer the questions at the end. At least this one can be >done by some humans! > I just heard a McNeill-Lerher report to the effect the student science scores are at an all time low. Is this the government's proposed solution to that problem . . . send robots to school instead of kids? If we want to take on a REALLY hard problem, why not put our minds to repairing an educational system which has been all but decimated by current government policy?