THE WISDOM MACHINE 

When the U.S. first started looking into their "Manhattan (atom bomb) Project" way back in 1940, after Albert Einstein had passed his now famous E=MC^2 note to President Roosevelt, the world saw the result of concentrated mindpower on a single objective.

Six years ago the Japanese announced to the world, with quite unusual fanfare for them, that they had started to develop "artificial intelligence" and would incorporate this into what they then termed the "Fifth Generation" of computers. Previous generations being the vacuum tube, the transistor, the silicon chip and then the intergrated circuit.

That announcement startled the world's scientific circles. If the Japanese can accomplish that, it was generally agreed, they would have calculating power far above and beyond anything that existed in the rest of the world. If successful, utilizing their concept of "expert systems", they might produce "The Wisdom Machine". Many still suspect that is the ultimate goal. And, it certainly isn't a bad goal if it could solve many problems of the modern world.

The Japanese gong that accompanied their original announcement set off alarm bells in more than one capital. Since then scientists, computer devotees and politicians around the world have been discussing the impact that such computer power could have on their countries' economic, military and social structures.

Today supposedly heavily-funded "Fifth Generation" projects are underway in the U.S. through their Strategic Computing Initiative (SCI) bankrolled to the tune of one billion dollars over the next 10 years by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and such programs at that of the Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corp (MCC) of Austin, Texas, funded for $50 million for last year alone. They claim their budget will jump to $65 million a year in later years and their staff will be increased to 600. Many other U.S. universities and corporate research centers are also pouring money into portions of other Fifth Generation Computer Systems. However, like many American projects, the announcements usually profess a larger project than actuality produces.

In Europe "Project Esprit" is being funded with $1.2 billion over the next five years. Britain has alloted $455 million over the next five years towards their "Alvey program". Britain may have the best strategy for their embattled economic island. They are seeking niches where they might excell. To those in the know that might be in the software. According to Grant Lucas, President of the Mitex Group, a software developer based in Vancouver, the British now have the best educational software in the world. They also have another big advantage. They are now the low-paid "coolies" of the high-tech world. British software designers are only being paid one-third that of American software people. Yet their country has a good number of high quality thinkers and appear to have the right personality to compete in this segment of development.

Participants in this race have one main problem: a shortage of qualified technical personnel. That shortage could become so acute that already some are suggesting they compare notes in a new form of international cooperation.

Japan meanwhile, six years out in front, have their project well underway at the Institute for New Generation Computer Technology (ICOT). They are also admitedly ahead in parallel computing, while the others currently appear to have the lead in the software side. But as usual the Japanese are putting tremendous effort into catching up in that sphere of development. Private Japanese corporations are reportedly spending five times as much money in this field than is the governments' ICOT.

Overall technical leadership, at this moment, is without question held by the U.S. Their Cray-2 computer is now capable of a peak performance rating of 1.2 billion floating-point operations per second. The gallium arsenide equipped Cray-3 supercomputer now under development is scheduled to perform ten times faster than their current model! Apple Computers has purchased a Cray supercomputer to use in the designing the architecture for their next Macintosh computer.

This whole field is advancing so fast that a country that doesn't at least know what is going on will appear as technological barbarians to those at the cutting edge.

Meanwhile, back in Canada, Eric Manning, director of the Institute for Computing Research at the University of Waterloo in Ontario reports that Canada is just getting organized. They have formed the Canadian Society for Fifth Generation Computing and have prepared a plan and requested funding to the tune of $40 million over the next three years. They'll be lucky if they get an answer in that time -especially via Canada Post.

Such concentration on one field must eventually bring forth seemingly unbelievable results. The world has lived in the shadow of "the bomb" for the past 40 years since the last time so much brainpower concentrated on a single objective. This time it might get lucky. Hope so.

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