ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE A N e w Tool for Industry and Business Richard K. Miller SEAl Institute P.O. Box 590 Madison, GA 30650 $485, ISBN 0 - 8 9 6 7 1 - 0 5 1 - 3 Reviewd by Keith Price A measure of the business interest in AI is the n u m ber of sources of i n f o r m a t i o n geared for m a n a g e m e n t . This r e p o r t is a r e v i e w of the capabilities of current AI s y s t e m s especially in h o w they an be used for industrail a u t o m a t i o n and m a n a g e m e n t . Most of the i n f o r m a t i o n is readily available elsewhere, but not in a single source. The discussion of varous AI research projects c o n c e n t r a t e s on w h a t the s y s t e m did rather than on h o w the s y s t e m did it. Actual products are discussedd, w i t h s o m e details, and sources for m o r e i n f o r m a t i o n are given. Since t h e r e p o r t is m e a n t for m a n a g e r s rather than researchers, s y s t e m s w h i c h p r o d u c e t a n g i b l e results and t h o s e in actual sue (e.g., DELTA at GE, XCON at DEC, DENDRAL) are g i v e n m o r e discussion than pure research efforts. As a resource b o o k for i n f o r m a t i o n a b o u t AI this report is good. Its long t e r m u t i l i t y depends on w h e t h e r t h e r e is an effort to keep the i n f o r m a t i o n up t o date or w h e t h e r this is a one t i m e report. The f o r m a t ( r e p r o d u c e d directly f r o m t y p e d copy) w o u l d make it easy to c o n tinually update the r e p o r t so that f u t u r e copies have the then c u r r e n t information. As in all reports of this t y p e t h e r e are a n o m a l i e s c o l l e l c t i n g different predictions of the future into one place h i g h l i g h t s inconsistencies. For instance a p r o j e c t i o n that AI s o f t w a r e will be a $5.4 billion m a r k e t in 1990 ( h a r d w a r e was not included) and a n o t h e r that half of all c o m p u t e r s will be "logic m a c h i n e s " by 1993 (i.e., t h e y will c o n t a i n AI c o m p o n e n t s ) is hard to reconcile w i t h the fact t h a t the current m i c r o - c o m p u t e r s o f t w a r e m a r k e t is a l ready $2 billion. It seems t h a t e i t h e r the AI m a r k e t should be m u c h larger or AI p e n e t r a t i o n in the m a r k e t will be much smaller. The second of the t w o v o l u m e s is the w e a k e r one. It describes AI p r o g r a m s at US universities. Primarily it is a listing of research r e p o r t abstracts f r o m these u n i v e r sities w i t h s u m m a r i e s of research areas at s o m e of them. There are s o m e n o t a b l e o m i s s i o n s of AI research. Only the CMU Robotics Institute reports are given, not the C o m p u t e r Science D e p a r t m e n t AI work. The SRI s u m m a r y is for t h e Industrial A u t o m a t i o n g r o u p only. USC was o m i t t e d , the AI w o r k at ISl is c e r t a i n l y n e c e s s a r y for any s u m m a r y of u n i v e r s i t y based research. Is this r e p o r t w o r t h w h i l e ? At $485 it is expensive, but it w o u l d cost m o r e than that to assemble the same information. It is not directed t o w a r d researchers but at managers w h o w a n t to d e t e r m i n e h o w AI can be effectivly used in their business. Since it was not w r i t t e n by a long t i m e AI researcher, it represents w h a t can be learned a b o u t AI (which m a y be i n t e r e s e t i n g to c o n s i d e r w h e n planning a u n i v e r s i t y course or an industry short course) rather than one person's original t h o u g h t s a b o u t h o w AI should be structured. Page 18 SIGART N e w s l e t t e r , O c t o b e r 1984, N u m b e r 90

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