4 ms·

Strategic Computing Initiative

36 points by mepian 2y ago

jonjacky 2y ago
Today (Tues Jun 11 2024) the HN black bar appeared in memory of Lynn Conway. Among her many many achievements, she was the administrator of the Strategic Computing Initiative for a while in the 1980s while she was working at DARPA.
ein0p 2y ago
[flagged]
wslh 2y ago
Japan had also its 5th generation project: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_artificial_intelligence?wprov=sfti1#Money_returns:_Fifth_Generation_project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_artificial_intellig...
torstenvl 2y ago
Wikipedia has an article that isn't a Guidelines-violating heap of propaganda. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Computing_Initiative https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Computing_Initiati...
- dang 2y ago
  Ok, we changed the URL to that from https://paleofuture.com/blog/2013/4/30/darpa-spent-1-billion-trying-to-build-a-real-life-skynet-in-the-1980s https://paleofuture.com/blog/2013/4/30/darpa-spent-1-billion... above.
- mepian 2y ago
  Could you please elaborate on why this is propaganda?
  - torstenvl 2y ago
    The version that was up before you commented claimed the U.S. tried to build Skynet.
    - mepian 2y ago
      That's not propaganda, it's run-of-the-mill clickbait. The clickbait is unfortunate, but the previous version provided more information that the Wikipedia page, including photos.
throwAGIway 2y ago
[flagged]
Animats 2y ago
That was an awful period, at the beginning of the AI Winter. The expert systems people were in charge, but expert systems couldn't do very much. I made the unpopular comment at the time that expert systems will turn out to be more important than syntax-directed parsing (once a hot topic in computer science - YACC, Bison, etc.) but less important than relational databases. I visited CMU and was inside the ALV once. Didn't get to see it move, though. It had a really slow 2D LIDAR scanner, with two moving mirrors, and three racks of SUN workstations. It wasn't a fundamentally bad idea. It just needed about four more orders of magnitude of compute power. They made it work by making it really slow, using a hydraulic transmission to allow creeping speed. By the DARPA Grand Challenge of 2005, it was finally possible to do off-road navigation. It's taken another two decades to deal with complex traffic successfully. Neural nets were around, but nobody had enough compute power to use them on anything useful. I once had to write a neural net program to recognize digits 0-9 as a class assignment. That was about what you could do before 2000 or so.
mepian 2y ago
The original link, not sure why it was replaced by moderators (is HN still being moderated by @dang alone?): https://paleofuture.com/blog/2013/4/30/darpa-spent-1-billion-trying-to-build-a-real-life-skynet-in-the-1980s https://paleofuture.com/blog/2013/4/30/darpa-spent-1-billion...

36 points by mepian 2y ago

Today (Tues Jun 11 2024) the HN black bar appeared in memory of Lynn Conway. Among her many many achievements, she was the administrator of the Strategic Computing Initiative for a while in the 1980s while she was working at DARPA.

ein0p 2y ago

[flagged]

wslh 2y ago

Japan had also its 5th generation project: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_artificial_intelligence?wprov=sfti1#Money_returns:_Fifth_Generation_project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_artificial_intellig...

torstenvl 2y ago

Wikipedia has an article that isn't a Guidelines-violating heap of propaganda. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Computing_Initiative https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Computing_Initiati...

dang 2y ago
Ok, we changed the URL to that from https://paleofuture.com/blog/2013/4/30/darpa-spent-1-billion-trying-to-build-a-real-life-skynet-in-the-1980s https://paleofuture.com/blog/2013/4/30/darpa-spent-1-billion... above.
mepian 2y ago
Could you please elaborate on why this is propaganda?
- torstenvl 2y ago
  The version that was up before you commented claimed the U.S. tried to build Skynet.
  - mepian 2y ago
    That's not propaganda, it's run-of-the-mill clickbait. The clickbait is unfortunate, but the previous version provided more information that the Wikipedia page, including photos.

throwAGIway 2y ago

[flagged]

Animats 2y ago

That was an awful period, at the beginning of the AI Winter. The expert systems people were in charge, but expert systems couldn't do very much. I made the unpopular comment at the time that expert systems will turn out to be more important than syntax-directed parsing (once a hot topic in computer science - YACC, Bison, etc.) but less important than relational databases. I visited CMU and was inside the ALV once. Didn't get to see it move, though. It had a really slow 2D LIDAR scanner, with two moving mirrors, and three racks of SUN workstations. It wasn't a fundamentally bad idea. It just needed about four more orders of magnitude of compute power. They made it work by making it really slow, using a hydraulic transmission to allow creeping speed. By the DARPA Grand Challenge of 2005, it was finally possible to do off-road navigation. It's taken another two decades to deal with complex traffic successfully. Neural nets were around, but nobody had enough compute power to use them on anything useful. I once had to write a neural net program to recognize digits 0-9 as a class assignment. That was about what you could do before 2000 or so.

mepian 2y ago

The original link, not sure why it was replaced by moderators (is HN still being moderated by @dang alone?): https://paleofuture.com/blog/2013/4/30/darpa-spent-1-billion-trying-to-build-a-real-life-skynet-in-the-1980s https://paleofuture.com/blog/2013/4/30/darpa-spent-1-billion...