\documentclass[landscape]{slides}
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\begin{document}


\begin{slide}
  \begin{center}
    \textcolor{red}{THE WEB---EARLY VISIONS, PRESENT REALITY, GRANDER 
    FUTURE}
  \end{center}
  \begin{center}
    John McCarthy, Stanford University \\
    mccarthy@stanford.edu \\
    http:/wWww-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/ \\
    \today
  \end{center}

$\bullet$ Turing---1936 Universal computer, Wilkes---1948 Edsac,
 von Neumann,(Eckert and Mauchly)---1946 stored program,

$\bullet$ Vannevar Bush---1945-Memex, doesn't mention universality

$\bullet$ Turing 1947 AI $\rightarrow$ (1970s applications)
$\rightarrow$ 20xx human level

$\bullet$ McCarthy 1958---Proposal for formalizing common sense, far
from accomplished today

$\bullet$ 1950s SAGE system, special purpose time-sharing

$\bullet$ McCarthy---1959-1962-1970---universal time-shared computer utility,
motivated by Advice Taker proposal

$\bullet$ Licklider---1960---Man-Computer Symbiosis

$\bullet$ Roberts---1970---ARPAnet $\rightarrow$ Internet

$\bullet$ Engelbart---1962-1968---Mouse, linked documents

$\bullet$ Kay---1970---Dynabook

$\bullet$ Berners-Lee---late 1980s and early 90s---World Wide Web

$\bullet$ Brin and Page---1996---Google---first adequate search engine

$\bullet$ other prophets---Nelson, etc. whom I neglect undeservedly 
from ignorance.

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\begin{slide}
 \begin{center}
    \textcolor{red}{SOME EARLY PREDICTIONS WORKED OUT---OTHERS NOT}
  \end{center}

$\bullet$ Time-shared public utilities.  Modest success.  Lack of 
machine power, needed too much handholding.  Worked fine in labs

$\bullet$ Stanford AI Lab news service, 1972-1989.  Prototype web newspaper.

$\bullet$ Access to all the world's books.  Still hasn't happened. 
Making steady progress for scientific articles.  No economic model for
literature except what's out of copyright.  John Ockerbloom at the
University of Pennsylvania links to more than 20,000 free-to-read
books.

$\bullet$ On-line buying and selling.  I don't think anyone predicted
Ebay auctions in the 1970s.

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\end{slide}

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\begin{slide}
  \begin{center}
    \textcolor{red}{TIME-SHARING vs. PERSONAL COMPUTERS}
  \end{center}

$\bullet$ General purpose time-sharing was proposed in 1959 and realized in 
1962.  Gave each user his share of the computer at his fingertips.
\textcolor{red}{What ever were punched cards?}  The Digital Equipment
Corporation PDP-6, PDP-10 series did it best but wasn't pushed in
competition with IBM.

$\bullet$ TX-2 about 1960 was a \$500,000 personal computer.  The
first SUN was a \$20,000 personal computer.

%$\bullet$ Multics got obsessed with security to the extent of 
%impracticality.  IBM followed M.I.T. into the swamp with TSS but 
%abandoned it.

%$\bullet$ Unix got rid of impracticalities but still inherits some 
%characteristics of very small machine.

%$\bullet$ Best for its time was PDP-10, but it wasn't pushed hard in 
%competition with IBM.  Better operating system than Unix or Mac or PC.

$\bullet$ The D.E.C. PDP-7 computers on which Unix was developed and
first IBM PCs were too weak, but the operating systems kept
adaptations to the weaknesses in vastly stronger computers.

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\end{slide}

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\begin{slide}
  \begin{center}
    \textcolor{red}{TIME-SHARING vs. PCs, part 2}
  \end{center}

  $\bullet$ The PC hell is system administration.  Need AI to do it 
  properly on a mass scale.
  
  $\bullet$ Software bloat
  
  $\bullet$ Operating systems as products require the user to do 
  sysadmin for every new version.  A time-sharing subscriber would 
  not.  There are probably 100 times as many system administrators as 
  should be needed.
  
  $\bullet$ Presently promised ``set top boxes'' seem to aim at
  monopoly.  Sysadmin is centralized but is probably too little and
  too late.
  
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\end{slide}

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\begin{slide}
  \begin{center}
    \textcolor{red}{FUTURE}
  \end{center}
  
$\bullet$ The present web is pretty good.  The users will do ok even 
without new ideas.  Those whose business is new ideas will suffer 
unless they have good new ideas.  The dot com crash was substantially 
due to a large number of bad or trivial new ideas.

$\bullet$ Everyone has trouble using something new.  Systems must 
understand user states of confusion.  Trivial example:
a user confuses IP address, email address, and URL.

$\bullet$ It is more important for a system to understand a user's
confusion than to offer sympathy.  (Some advocates of ``emotional 
computing'' are hoping to get by with sympathy.  My bet is that mere
sympathy will only produce annoyance.)

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\end{slide}


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\begin{slide}
  \begin{center}
  \textcolor{red}{1970 MODEL WORLD OF THE FUTURE}
  \end{center}
  
%Here are some 1970 model new ideas compared with what happened.

This 1970 conference article ``The home computer terminal'' was
published in \emph{Man and
  Computer,(Karger, Basel 1972)}.  It's available as\\
www.formal.stanford.edu/jmc/hoter2.html.

Here are some fragments of the 1970 article, with notes in
\textcolor{blue}{blue}.

%\textcolor{red}{*********}

``At present, a newspaper or a book is a package produced by a large
organization.


``In our new system, the physical production disappears
allowing a much smaller organization to put out the same packages of text
and pictures. Moreover, the user does not face a one shot decision to buy
Life or Look. He will be able to read the 'cover' or table of contents of
each and read such items as strike his fancy, and the system will bill him
for what he reads from each source. In fact, since the cost of keeping a
file of information in the computer and making it publicly available will
be small, even a high school student could compete with the New Yorker if
he could write well enough and if word of mouth and mention by reviewers
brought him to public attention. What, then, is a publication in the new
information system?''

\textcolor{blue}{Note 2000: I underestimated the resistance to being
  displaced these organizations would be able to mount.  Resisters
  include the publication organizations of non-profit scientific
  societies. I also underestimated the fraction of the cost of
  producing a newspaper that would persist even if the newspaper were
  entirely on-line.}
  
\textcolor{blue}{Note 2004: Four years later, the biologists have
  taken the lead in creating on-line journals that compete with print
  journals.  Their financial basis is page charges, which works for
  science, because page charges are a small fraction of the cost of
  doing the research, but that model won't work for people who make a
  living by writing.}

\textcolor{blue}{Blogs come closest to my predictions, but they can't
  afford famous professional writers.}

\textcolor{blue}{2004 November note: Some of the politcal bloggers
  made a lot of money from advertisements during the election
  campaign.  The resulting competition should professionalize blogging.}

``A publication is an organization that puts out a list of material
it has edited and recommends to its readers. It helps its authors produce
material that it thinks will suit the readers, and it has a financial
arrangement with them about splitting the proceeds.

``There can be a wide variety of publications of different standards
of writing and editing and different budgets for carrying out these
activities.

``However, they will all be equally accessible to all readers, and the only
justification for an expensive editorial organization will be that it can
produce a more popular package. The price of reading a package can be set
by the publishers.''

\textcolor{blue}{Note 2004: This ignores the copying problem.  There
still isn't a general purpose pay-by-the read mechanism.  Moreover,
the difference between professional (full time) writing and
semi-professional writing is likely to persist.}

\textcolor{blue}{The star phenomenon will persist and become even more
  dominant.} 

``A reader may feel that he needs help in finding his way through the
totality of literature available to him. Various people will be eager to
make a living by providing it. A bookstore or library is a program that
when called shows the 'covers' of publications. Reviewers will produce
lists for him and make money when he reads their lists or by kickbacks from
the publishers. 'Reading advisers' under some catchier name will offer to
generate lists just for him according to a profile of his
interests.''

\textcolor{blue}{Note 2004: This hasn't happened enough to make
writers independent of publications.  The 1970 article didn't take 
into account the importance of publicity and advertising.}

``Advertising in the sense of something that can force itself on the
attention of a reader will disappear because it will be too easy to read
via a program that screens out undesirable material.''

\textcolor{blue}{Note 2004: This didn't happen, perhaps fortunately.
  Also I didn't predict spam.  I am temperamentally an
  extreme optimist, but the pessimists didn't predict spam either.}

``Another effect is the possibility of frequent revisions of articles
and books. An author can take into account new facts or other people's
criticisms, and the revision will take effect
immediately.''  \textcolor{blue}{Readers of an old version will be
  unlikely to read a work again even if it contains important
  changes.  Better put the changes in a new article.}

\textcolor{blue}{Note 2004: I put dated footnotes on my old articles,
  but I doubt their existence lures anyone to read the article again.}

``Public controversy can be carried out more expeditiously than at
present. If I read something that seems controversial, I can ask the
system if anyone has filed a reply. This, together with an author's
ability to revise his original statement, will lead people to converge
on considered positions more quickly than at present even if they do
not come to actual agreement.''

\textcolor{blue}{Note 2000: There are various proposals,
  but this hasn't happened yet.  One can imagine Bush and Gore
  ``truth squads'' putting on their candidates' web sites arguments
  against the positions of the other guy.  Personal attacks
  too.}
  
\textcolor{blue}{Note 2000 June 1: Today's New York Times has an article
  entitled ``E-Mail Messages to the Press Have Made the Gore-Bush Race
  a Cyberwar'' recounting how the Gore and Bush campaigns send dozens
  of messages per day to reporters.  I suppose this is a partial
  realization of my 1970 prediction.}
  
\textcolor{blue}{Note 2004: The campaigns have their web sites, but 
they still aren't the main places undecided people go to see
arguments refuting those of the other side.  Alas, TV advertising is
still the main way of influencing the voters.}  

``Famous authors will not need publishers because their loyal readers
will have the system find their stuff automatically.''

\textcolor{blue}{Note 2004: A try at this failed because of copying}

``To summarize: the new information system will promote intellectual
competition by reducing the price of entry, will permit readers to be
selective, and will allow authors to revise material until they are
satisfied that it withstands criticism as well as it ever will. This 
should make intellectual life more interesting.''

\textcolor{blue}{Note 2004: This doesn't seem to happen much.  Instead of 
perfecting their earlier analyses, bloggers just bombard their 
opponents with new stuff.}

%The financial aspect of writing would presumably be as follows: a
%piece of written material has a price for reading it (this price may be
%zero for amateur writing, political propaganda, advertising, and for
%scientific journals). The reader's account is debited and the account 
%to which the material belongs is automatically credited. The reader 
%will have the system balk at what he considers overpriced material.

``The new information system will have a profound effect on buying
and selling. Sellers of movies, groceries, automobiles, plumbing services
and cures for baldness will find it advantageous to list their wares in the
information system together with current prices and availability. The user
can place an order through the system as he can by telephone, but he can do
much more:''

\textcolor{blue}{Note 2004 : This happened but isn't revolutionory.}

``(1) He can call on someone's program to scan the sellers of sports
cars and propose what it considers the best deal. This program might even
negotiate with programs representing the 
sellers.\textcolor{blue}{There's some of it now.}

``(2) He can tell the system whether last year's cure for baldness worked
and get a summary of the opinions of those who bothered to record their
opinions of the cure he contemplates trying now.

``(3) He can make an airplane or hotel reservation by interacting with a
program the airline or hotel reservation company has written to tell
him what is available. He need not suffer the delays you now get when
you call an airline or travel agent at peak hours.''  \textcolor{blue}{All
  this has happened.}

``(4) Individual design and construction services can be offered
through the system although this requires the development of
computer-controlled manufacturing techniques for various types of articles.
The idea is that automated design programs can produce designs for articles
meeting individual specifications.% Either by himself or in consultation
%with an expert, an individual would use the system to produce a design and
%display how it would look and possibly how it would perform. Candidates for
%individual design include clothing, furniture, boats, electronic equipment,
%houses, and even cars. The system would then produce the instructions for
%controlling machine tools, fabric cutters, and also printed instructions
%for the hand parts of the operation. In general, it should be possible to
%make single objects at little more cost than present mass produced objects.
%In some cases, there would even be savings, because mass production
%requires estimates of demand that are often wrong resulting in inventories
%that are expensive to sell or even have to be sold at a loss; the cost of
%this is made up by a general increase in prices.

\textcolor{blue}{Note 2004: This hasn't
  happened yet.  Maybe it will.}

``There are many more useful services that can be offered through the
new information system and again the system is conducive to competition.
Writing and storing a program and announcing its availability can be a very
low capital operation, and the system can collect whatever price has been
set for its use.''

\textcolor{blue}{Note 2004: This has happenened, but In the world of
  pcs, this is far less convenient than in a world of
  time-sharing---or than it should be.}

\textcolor{blue}{Note 2004: The above greatly underestimates the role
refereeing and publicity of all kinds plays in creating reputation 
and getting attention to ideas.}%  Example: Maybe I could have 
%headed off some blunders of XML by publishing my \emph{Common Business
%Communication Language} elsewhere than in in a one shot IBM 
%conference proceedings.

\textcolor{blue}{2004 note: My 1970 article did not see AI as as
essential as I now see it to help people use computers.}


\vfill
\end{slide}
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\begin{slide}
  \begin{center}
    \textcolor{red}{THE FUTURE OF PERSONAL COMPUTING INVOLVES AI,
      BETTER THAN THE AI OF TODAY.}
  \end{center}

Example: swindle protector

$\bullet$ A low level protector knows about specific swindles.

$\bullet$ Higher level can identify variants of the Nigerian scam.

$\bullet$ High level---knows facts about swindling in general.

%$\bullet$ `

%$\bullet$ 

\vfill
\end{slide}

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\begin{slide}
%  \begin{center}
%    \textcolor{red}{NEEDED AI ADVANCES IN HELPING USERS}
%  \end{center}
Example: Understanding a user's confusion.
  
%$\bullet$ We need a substitute for spam.

$\bullet$ Suppose the user confuses IP addresses and URLs.  Suppose a 
program asks for an IP address, and the user gives a URL.  Most 
present programs will simply put up an OK box that says ``wrong 
format''.  The user may just worry about the format of the URL.  A 
system designer who anticipated the confusion would have the program 
say ``You gave me a URL when I asked for an IP address.''  

$\bullet$ More generally, system administration requires knowledge 
and reasoning.  \textcolor{red}{Evidence: The people who spend 
several hours fixing my problems obviously think a lot.  They 
understand enough to fix my problems, but they don't understand 
enough about how they do it to automate their work.}

%$\bullet$ 

%$\bullet$ 


\vfill
\end{slide}
%confuse email address and ip address

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\begin{slide}
  \begin{center}
    \textcolor{red}{LOGICAL AI IS PROBABLY NEEDED TO UNDERSTAND USERS'
      PROBLEMS}
  \end{center}

Logical AI involves expressing what is known about the world,
especially common sense knowledge, in languages of mathematical
logic.  The logical AI program infers from the sentences about the
world and sentences about a particular situation that a certain course
of action is appropriate.  The main scientific basis for  logical AI
is mathematical logic as developed since 1879.  Newer methods of
\emph{non-monotonic reasoning} developed since the 1970s are also
needed.

Logical AI is based on study of the world and the actions that achieve
goals.  Its main rival is based on stuying human and animal
neurophysiology.  Both approaches have been pursued for 50 years, and
neither has reached human-level AI yet.  Excuse: It took the
geneticists about 100 years from Mendel to the genetic code, and
genetics isn't done yet.

\vfill
\end{slide}  
%  It is a commonplace that the meaning of an expression (noun phrase
%  in natural language) depends on context.  The general notion is
%  vague.  To make it precise enough for reasoning,
%  \textcolor{blue}{contexts} should be treated first class logical
%  objects.
  
%We use

%\begin{displaymath}
%c:\ \quad      p
%\end{displaymath}
%%
%to assert $p$ while in the context $c$.  Terms also can be written
%using contexts.  $c:e$ is an expression $e$ in the context $c$.

%The main application of contexts as objects is to assert relations
%between the objects denoted by different expressions in different
%contexts.  Thus we have
%%
%\begin{displaymath}
%c:\ Does(Joe,a) = SpecializeActor(c,Joe):a,
%\end{displaymath}
%or, more generally,
%%
%\begin{displaymath}
%SpecializesActor(c,c',Joe) \rightarrow c:Does(Joe,a)) = c':a.
%\end{displaymath}

%Such \emph{lifting} relations between expressions in different
%contexts allows using a situation calculus theory in which the actor
%is not explicitly represented in an outer context in which there is
%more than one actor.

%We also need to express the relation between an external context 
%in which we refer to the knowledge and awareness of AutoCar2 and 
%AutoCar2's internal context in which it can use ``I''.

%\vfill
%\end{slide}

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%\begin{slide}
%  \begin{center}
%    \textcolor{red}{PHENOMENAL DATA MINING REQUIRES FORMALIZING COMMON
%      SENSE}
%  \end{center}

%$\bullet$ Data are a window on phenomena.  Relations among phenomena
%are the real goal of data mining.

%$\bullet$ The data in a file of purchases in a supermarket, are 
%a window on the phenomena, e.g. the customers and their demographics.

%$\bullet$ My 1997 paper was well received by people who do data
%mining, but there are no implementations of phenomenal data mining,
%because they, because they require commonsense reasoning using a
%common sense knowledge base as
%well as from the database being mined.\\
%See www.formal.stanford.edu/jmc/phenomenal.html.

%$\bullet$ Unfortunately, making a commonsense knowledge base is 
%difficult.  Reasoning from natural language is even harder.

%$\bullet$ \textcolor{blue}{2000 challenge to document retrieval
%  programs: Which editorials on the web advocated that Clinton be
%  impeached, and which opposed it.}  Hint: To statistical document
%retrieval programs, ``not'' is a noise word.

%\vfill
%\end{slide}

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%\begin{slide}
%  \begin{center}
%    \textcolor{red}{COMMON BUSINESS COMMUNICATION LANGUAGE}
%  \end{center}

%My 1985 paper proposed a Lisp list notation for business
%communication.  That notation is better than XML, and the proposals
%went beyond notation to include propose standardizing elements of
%common business communications, e.g. \textcolor{blue}{offer-to-buy} 
%and \textcolor{blue}{delivery-method}.  To understand a complicated 
%delivery request and combine it with external facts requires logical 
%reasoning.  See my\\
%www.formal.stanford.edu/jmc/cbcl.html.

%d. (REQUEST-QUOTE  (ADJECTIVE  (PENCILS \#2)  YELLOW)  (GROSS 100))

%A program not understanding
%YELLOW could nevertheless understand that \#2 pencils were called for, 
%and could reply that they don't have any pencils, if that were so.

%e. (PLEASE-RESERVE (EPSILON (X) (AND (IS-FLIGHT X) (DEPARTS
%MONDAY) (ARRIVES (BEFORE WEDNESDAY))))).  

%$(\epsilon x)P(x)$ stands for ``an $x$ such that $P(x)$.
    
   


%\vfill
%\end{slide}

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%% /u/ftp/jmc/selfaware.tex NOTES ON SELF-AWARENESS

\begin{slide}
  \begin{center}
    \textcolor{red}{BIG ADVANCES REQUIRE LOGICAL FORMULATION OF 
    COMMON SENSE KNOWLEDGE AND REASONING}
  \end{center}

$\bullet$ Humans mainly communicate in facts, not just rules or 
programs.

$\bullet$ Humans reason to get new facts from old.  Logicians 
formalized these rules.  G\"odel proved them complete.

$\bullet$ Reasoning programs require full first order reasoning.

$\bullet$ Advanced help requires \textcolor{blue}{understanding} the 
problem domain and usually understanding the user's state of mind.

%$\bullet$ 

%$\bullet$ 

%$\bullet$ 

\vfill
\end{slide}

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\begin{slide}
  \begin{center}
    \textcolor{red}THE FUTURE OF THE WEB---PART I{}
  \end{center}

$\bullet$ Everyone will be able to read anything.  The problem of
paying authors will be solved.

$\bullet$ While world population won't even double, the public will
incread by a factor of five.

$\bullet$ Very specialized interest will have adequate publics.

$\bullet$ There will be more rich stars---for better or worse.

\vfill
\end{slide}


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\begin{slide}
  \begin{center}
    \textcolor{red}{THE  FUTURE OF THE WEB?---PART II}
  \end{center}

Programs that understand

$\bullet$ substantial parts of natural language documents,

$\bullet$ facts about the world,

$\bullet$ facts about people's states of mind, including confused 
states of mind,

$\bullet$ can give good advice,

$\bullet$ and can put together programs from this information.

\vfill
\end{slide}

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\end{document}

$\bullet$

\begin{slide}
  \begin{center}
    \textcolor{red}{}
  \end{center}

$\bullet$ 

\vfill
\end{slide}

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\begin{slide}
  \begin{center}
    \textcolor{red}{}
  \end{center}

$\bullet$ 

\vfill
\end{slide}

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The first slide had all the commands in upper case.
My attempt to lay the file transferred from steam on alpha failed.  It 
doesn't work to put an alpha on an OS X desktop.  Just opening the 
file sent me on a successful search for the right application.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
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At present, a newspaper or a book is a package produced by a large
organization.\textcolor{blue}{2000: I didn't think of the resistance to being
  displaced these organizations would be able to mount.  The clearest
  examples of such resisters are the publication organizations of
  scientific societies which are in principle non-profit organizations.}
 In our new system, the physical production disappears
allowing a much smaller organization to put out the same packages of text
and pictures. Moreover, the user does not face a one shot decision to buy
Life or Look. He will be able to read the 'cover' or table of contents of
each and read such items as strike his fancy, and the system will bill him
for what he reads from each source. In fact, since the cost of keeping a
file of information in the computer and making it publicly available will
be small, even a high school student could compete with the New Yorker if
he could write well enough and if word of mouth and mention by reviewers
brought him to public attention. What, then, is a publication in the new
information system?

A publication is an organization that puts out a list of material
it has edited and recommends to its readers. It helps its authors produce
material that it thinks will suit the readers, and it has a financial
arrangement with them about splitting the proceeds.\textcolor{blue}{The
  on-line publications do not yet think of themselves in this way.}

There can be a wide variety of publications of different standards
of writing and editing and different budgets for carrying out these
activities.

However, they will all be equally accessible to all readers, and the only
justification for an expensive editorial organization will be that it can
produce a more popular package. The price of reading a package can be set
by the publishers.

A reader may feel that he needs help in finding his way through the
totality of literature available to him. Various people will be eager to
make a living by providing it. A bookstore or library is a program that
when called shows the 'covers' of publications. Reviewers will produce
lists for him and make money when he reads their lists or by kickbacks from
the publishers. 'Reading advisers' under some catchier name will offer to
generate lists just for him according to a profile of his
interests.\textcolor{blue}{All this has happened}.

Advertising in the sense of something that can force itself on the
attention of a reader will disappear because it will be too easy to read
via a program that screens out undesirable material.\textcolor{blue}{2000: This
  hasn't really happened yet.  People's desire to read for free has
  led to toleration of advertisements.  I'd rather pay.} However, people will
still want to know what is for sale and will still want to see the seller's
story about why they should buy it. Probably, Life will still be able to
get money from advertisers; many people will still want to know what is
advertised in Life, but those who do not want to know will be able to avoid
it automatically.

Another effect is the possibility of frequent revisions of articles
and books. An author can take into account new facts or other people's
criticisms, and the revision will take effect immediately. This raises
1984ish possibilities, so it must be provided that old versions remain
available. Those who suspect the whole system will keep their own copies of
favorite material in their private files, on microfilm, or even on paper.

Public controversy can be carried out more expeditiously than at
present. If I read something that seems controversial, I can ask the
system if anyone has filed a reply. This, together with an author's
ability to revise his original statement, will lead people to converge
on considered positions more quickly than at present even if they do
not come to actual agreement.\textcolor{blue}{There are various proposals,
  but this hasn't happened yet.  One can imagine Bush and McCain
  ``truth squads'' putting on their candidates' web sites arguments
  against the positions of the other guy.  Personal attacks
  too.}\textcolor{blue}{2000 June 1: Today's New York Times has an article
  entitled ``E-Mail Messages to the Press Have Made the Gore-Bush Race
  a Cyberwar'' recounting how the Gore and Bush campaigns send dozens
  of messages per day to reporters.   This is a partial
  realization of the 1970 prediction.}

Famous authors will not need publishers because their loyal readers
will have the system find their stuff automatically.

To summarize: the new information system will promote intellectual
competition by reducing the price of entry, will permit readers to be
selective, and will allow authors to revise material until they are
satisfied that it withstands criticism as well as it ever will. This 
should make intellectual life more interesting.

The financial aspect of writing would presumably be as follows: a
piece of written material has a price for reading it (this price may be
zero for amateur writing, political propaganda, advertising, and for
scientific journals). The reader's account is debited and the account 
to which the material belongs is automatically credited. The reader 
will have the system balk at what he considers overpriced material.

The new information system will have a profound effect on buying
and selling. Sellers of movies, groceries, automobiles, plumbing services
and cures for baldness will find it advantageous to list their wares in the
information system together with current prices and availability. The user
can place an order through the system as he can by telephone, but he can do
much more:

(1) He can call on someone's program to scan the sellers of sports
cars and propose what it considers the best deal. This program might even
negotiate with programs representing the sellers.

(2) He can tell the system whether last year's cure for baldness worked
and get a summary of the opinions of those who bothered to record their
opinions of the cure he contemplates trying now.

(3) He can make an airplane or hotel reservation by interacting with a
program the airline or hotel reservation company has written to tell
him what is available. He need not suffer the delays you now get when
you call an airline or travel agent at peak hours.\textcolor{blue}{All this
  has happened.}

(4) Individual design and construction services can be offered
through the system although this requires the development of
computer-controlled manufacturing techniques for various types of articles.
The idea is that automated design programs can produce designs for articles
meeting individual specifications. Either by himself or in consultation
with an expert, an individual would use the system to produce a design and
display how it would look and possibly how it would perform. Candidates for
individual design include clothing, furniture, boats, electronic equipment,
houses, and even cars. The system would then produce the instructions for
controlling machine tools, fabric cutters, and also printed instructions
for the hand parts of the operation. In general, it should be possible to
make single objects at little more cost than present mass produced objects.
In some cases, there would even be savings, because mass production
requires estimates of demand that are often wrong resulting in inventories
that are expensive to sell or even have to be sold at a loss; the cost of
this is made up by a general increase in prices.\textcolor{blue}{This hasn't
  happened yet.  Maybe it will.}

There are many more useful services that can be offered through the
new information system and again the system is conducive to competition.
Writing and storing a program and announcing its availability can be a very
low capital operation, and the system can collect whatever price has been
set for its use.

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    \textcolor{red}{WHAT ABOUT ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE?}
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