two agendas of artificial intelligence

[z007400b@bcfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us (Ralph Silverman)]

mmalcolm crawford (m.crawford@shef.ac.uk) wrote:
: The Institute for Language, Speech and Hearing at The University of Sheffield 
: is extending an open invitation to this seminar by Professor Richard Sharman 
: of IBM (UK) Ltd.  If you would like to attend, please contact Malcolm 
: Crawford <m.crawford@shef.ac.uk> (so that we can be sure that there is 
: sufficient seating!).


: Why study language computationally?
: or
: "Where do we go from here?"

: Richard Sharman
: 	IBM (UK) Limited

: Thursday 24 October 1996, 2:30 pm
: 	Lecture Theatre 2, Sir Henry Stephenson Building
: 	Mappin Street, Sheffield S1


: Speech and Language have been studied intensively using computational 
: modelling techniques in the modern era for more than 40 years. Yet a sceptic 
: might say that the best advances have come from non-linguistic innovations 
: such as the word-processor and spell-checker, while for most people modern 
: computer interfaces owe more to visual and tactile interactions, over 
: linguistic ones, than they ever did. So what is the utility of continuing 
: research and development in goals such as continuous speech recognition, and 
: intelligent information extraction, when these are as far away as they have 
: ever been? Will funding agencies continue to support this field if 
: breakthroughs are not made, and other media, such as the Internet, become 
: more fashionable? A personal view of where research and development has 
: succeeded and failed sheds some light on these questions.


: http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/research/ilash/Seminars/

: -- 


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***************begin r.s. response******************

	natural language recognition
	certainly is a classic problem
	of artificial intelligence
	and,  naturally,  interesting
	to researchers...

	certainly,  great progress in this
	could be made,  if appropriate resources
	were to be applied...

	why the gloom?

	perhaps there is a problem here
	regarding will,  priorities and
	politics ... this can not be technical
	in its roots!!!

	an early vision of the future of
	computer systems involves increasing
	similarity to humans in the intellectual
	capacities of these;  and this idea certainly
	is promising of realization...

	a more recent view
	(found in more popular publications),
	is that of the computer as an
	accessory of a privileged lifestyle,
	which,  of course,  in this...
	is supposed to be enhancing,
	not threatening,  to privilege
	and to privileged lifestyles...

***************end r.s. response********************
Ralph Silverman
z007400b@bcfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us




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Ralph Silverman
z007400b@bcfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us