Lighthill 17 years on

Abstract

It is a common Establishment practice in the UK to ask an expert, recognized for his/her sound views, to give a view on controversial matters of public interest. There are recent examples in such varied fields as accounting standards, export credits, and microgravity. Administrations—for all the current fashion for “built-in evaluation”—have no time or inclination to take a look backwards at these autographs. In this paper the author, who was a civil servant, and has worked for ten years as a consultant, including two years in the European Commission, considers, with the help of hindsight, the Lighthill Report of 1972 on AI.

This review implies making judgements about the progress of AI which cannot help being contentious. First, there will be disagreements about judgements, or even assertions—the author cannot claim authority over the whole field, unless as a voyeur; there may be important developments he has failed to take account of. Second, there will be arguments that Lighthill was to an extent self-fulfilling—that is, that there would have been more advance if some aspects of AI had not been checked at his advice. Third, it will be said that it takes time to work up a new computational concept—or any other new thing.

However, whatever the reservations, the main conclusion put forward is that there was an element of over-optimism about AI in general which Lighthill had reason to castigate. In directing his comments to the utility of AI in specific fields Lighthill got some things wrong, but, on balance—which is not easy to strike—probably more things right than wrong.

Extrapolating to the present day the writer questions whether, in the UK after Alvey, and not least in Japan, resources are not being expended on AI objectives which are intellectually stimulating but remain too far from the application's sharp end; and therefore whether there is still not too much “jam tomorrow” about AI. Whether or not this questioning is judged to be wrongheaded, perhaps it will prove useful to have stirred discussion on the subject.