article Some challenges and grand challenges for computational intelligence Author: Edward A. Feigenbaum Stanford University, Stanford, California Stanford University, Stanford, CaliforniaView Profile Authors Info & Claims Journal of the ACMVolume 50Issue 1January 2003 pp 32–40https://doi.org/10.1145/602382.602400Published:01 January 2003Publication History 66citation4,043DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations66Total Downloads4,043Last 12 Months67Last 6 weeks14 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!This alert has been successfully added and will be sent to:You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.To manage your alert preferences, click on the button below.Manage my AlertsNew Citation Alert!Please log in to your account Save to BinderSave to BinderCreate a New BinderNameCancelCreateExport CitationPublisher SiteGet Access

During AI's first decade (1956-1966), the task environments in which AI scientists investigated their basic science issues were generally idealized clean task environments, such as propositional calculus theorem proving and puzzle solving. After the mid-1960s, a bolder and more applied inclination to choose complex real-world problems as task environments became evident. These efforts were both successful and exciting, in two ways. First, the AI programs were achieving high levels of competence at solving certain problems that human specialists found challenging (the excitement was that our AI techniques were indeed powerful and that we were taking the first steps toward the dream of the very smart machine). Second, these complex real-world task environments were proving to be excellent at stimulating basic science questions for the AI science, in knowledge representation, problem solving, and machine learning. To recognize and illuminate this trend, the Artificial Intelligence Journal in 1978 sponsored a special issue on applications of artificial intelligence.

Projecting a great vision of intelligent systems in the service of the economy and society, the Japanese government in 1982 launched the national Fifth Generation Computer Systems (FGCS) project. The project was carried out by a central research institute, ICOT, with personnel from its member-owners, the Japanese computer manufacturers (JCMs) and other electronics industry firms. The project was planned for ten years, but continues through year eleven and beyond. ICOT chose to focus its efforts on language issues and programming methods for logic programming, supported by special hardware. Sequential ‘inference machines’ (PSI) and parallel ‘inference machines’ (PIM) were built. Performances of the hardware-software hybrid was measured in the range planned (150 million logical inferences per second). An excellent system for logic programming on parallel machines was constructed (KL1). However, applications were done in demonstration form only (not deployed). The lack of a stream of applications that computer customers found effective, and the sole use of a language outside the mainstream, Prolog, led to disenchantment among the JCMs.

This is the author's report of his visit to the Soviet Union in June and July, 1960. The purpose of the trip was to attend the First Congress of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) as an official American delegate. The author also arranged to meet with certain scientists in psychology, physiology, and the computer sciences, and to visit some Russian research institutions doing work in these areas. Soviet research in cybernetics, neuro-cybernetics, artificial intelligence, mechanical translation, and automatic programming are discussed, and new developments in Soviet computing machines are described. The author describes his discussions with several important Soviet personalities in the computer sciences, which dealt with their particular work and the work of their research institutions. He concludes that Soviet research in the computer sciences lags behind Western developments, but that the gap is neither large nor based on a lack of understanding of fundamental principles. He believes that the Soviets will move ahead rapidly if and when priority, in terms of accessibility to computing machines, is given to their research.