Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!feedme.UUCP!doug From: doug@feedme.UUCP (Doug Salot) Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest Subject: Grand Challenges Message-ID: <19880927032309.0.NICK@INTERLAKEN.LCS.MIT.EDU> Date: 27 Sep 88 03:23:00 GMT Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 55 Approved: ailist@ai.ai.mit.edu ---- Forwarded Message Follows ---- Return-path: <@AI.AI.MIT.EDU:ailist-request@AI.AI.MIT.EDU> Received: from AI.AI.MIT.EDU by ZERMATT.LCS.MIT.EDU via CHAOS with SMTP id 196365; 23 Sep 88 10:52:50 EDT Received: from BLOOM-BEACON.MIT.EDU (TCP 2224000021) by AI.AI.MIT.EDU 23 Sep 88 11:00:11 EDT Received: by BLOOM-BEACON.MIT.EDU with sendmail-5.59/4.7 id; Fri, 23 Sep 88 10:42:08 EDT Received: from USENET by bloom-beacon.mit.edu with netnews for ailist@ai.ai.mit.edu (ailist@ai.ai.mit.edu) (contact usenet@bloom-beacon.mit.edu if you have questions) Date: 22 Sep 88 08:20:17 GMT From: peregrine!zardoz!dhw68k!feedme!doug@jpl-elroy.arpa (Doug Salot) Organization: Feedme Microsystems, Orange County, CA Subject: Grand Challenges Message-Id: <123@feedme.UUCP> Sender: ailist-request@ai.ai.mit.edu To: ailist@ai.ai.mit.edu 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: 1) A speaker-independent, continuous speech, multilingual real-time translation system. Make sure you don't mess up when the the speech is ambiguous, nongramatical, or a phrase is incomplete. Be sure to maintain speaker characteristics (what's Chinese sound like with a Texas accent?). As you may know, Japan is funding a 7 year effort at $120 million to put a neural-net in a telephone which accomplishes this feat for Japanese <-> English (it's a picture phone too, so part of the problem is to make lips sync with the speech, I guess). 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! While I'm sure some interesting results would come from attempting such projects, these sorts of things could probably be done sooner by tossing out ethical considerations and cloning humanoids. If we were to accept the premise that Big Science is a Good Thing, what should our one big goal? I personally think an effort to develop a true man-machine interface (i.e., neural i/o) would be the most beneficial in terms of both applications and as a driving force for several disciplines. -- Doug Salot || doug@feedme.UUCP || ...{zardoz,dhw68k,conexch}!feedme!doug Raisin Deters - Breakfast never tasted so good.