cenenvaenenes CO nN AWE CRU AUE EN EFONSREETEN ERED ENeCE STORET ETE EEUETESeTRTCENESUETEENE
apiting on. DUMPIT JLI7 O10). |, pee

O,22-APRO7T6 L7ESSHS8,22-APRH7TH L755SHSGsLGONOVELSSS 168003003

Z2-APRo7H O8LU1s22— PET, 4818 ,000000000000.

Mai? from MITOMC revd at 220APRa76 0841 ePST

Dates 22 APR 1976 1134eE8T |

Fromt JOSEPH at MITeMc

Toa Lederberg at SUMEX@AIM

Dear Joshual

Dd em aware that nedther of us have the time te: engage in an.
extended debate. aver the network, I hope therefore phat chis will be my
Jaet message te you heaving to do with yaur N,Y,7, review = although I do
hape that we wit have other cecasions to write to one anether,

, Your leat message came to ma as I was about to Lee e Oe eee
trip, All I had time dor then was to peapond with the eryntic note that
yeu must heave gotten by now, Let ma now {11 that out @ Ifttie,.

tk Let me say firat that I do not consider mysel? 9 Journalist whe
{s commenting on aome field outside his normal. working community = noe
did I think I was writing.a. book thet .was te serve as a9. sort of consensus ;
document for computer selence or the AT branch. 0 t85. It there fe ;
anything elear about the book, it must be that jt (a highly idfesyneratic
(to a foultd)s shat {ft @resents fet how ‘ ngs are but .hew Joseph
Welzenbeum perceives them,. Nevarthelesas t ttied to be carefy) to gee my
facts straight, Part af my caretaking was: to place the manuseript of the
entire. book on the MIT At machine and to jet .everyene knew that ft was
there, . I did all the editing fn that mode, . I did in fact get lots. of
jepmments from Stanford and certainiy from MIT many of wh teh prompted me
to rewrite entire chapters, I gave Maryin Minaky @ copy of the M8 a full
year betore: publ leattan and pressed him forp-gommentsa and ertticisms,
(Many copies of the Ms, were efrculated ameng the MIT AI faculty and
Graduate students at the same time and were widely commented on © with
effects I might add.) Marvin suggested precisely ene, change which I
peometly made, f asked for permission to: quate for virtually all the
quotes thet appear in the book, , No-author wrote to me saving he. ne
longer stands behind what { was quoting, IJ. wrote to Kem Colby especially
but got fe response from him,

. . . MeCarthy in hde: scathing eriticlems, of the beok (whieh 2
cheerfully receive and to. which I have and will respond) never asserts
that I misrepresent anyone's position. | He does sav that he cannot, find
the quote I attribute to him and that ie asserts what he did not belfeve
{n- 1973. oF mow, Welle 2 paid bite rotten Mili abe tewing the
tapefram which the quote wee taken, I challenged him with hia atatement:
at the Stanford AI meeting in 1973 and he defended {t then, He ‘again
defended {t (Winograd and. many others were pragent) on March 9th, 1976 at
MelaTe 2 read the Colby quetes at the Stanford AI meeting with Ken Im the
audience, He commented from the Yoor = but never to sey he no longer
believed whet I quoted him as having written, Newell) was there ajso (2
ee wee |

have the tare) and in a lengthy comment on what I had sald (I quoted the
Simon remark on the "whole man") he ceitie(aed me only en the ground that
Ll sauld net prove what the limits of the comnyter were = {see that it
gould not simulate or account for the whole man, He did met say that
Simon no longer held to whet he published fn 1969, .

I believe (perhaps naively) that publishing something entails a

PAGE 2

commitment that cannct be undone by private communigations, 3 ¢ind ne
recantations of the quotes I have: used in the public Hiterature,. fe the
Gontrarys the most recent lectures by Simon and Minsky (CAprei! and. and
January igen at MIT respectively) reflect and assert the very positions I
deseribe in the baok,

Juste by the waye I wish you would ask Paul Apmer about the calm
wnemotional,s, thouroyshty professional and sustained part I played in ¢he
ABM debate,

Finally, Jeshua, I did mot and de not "demand" anything from you,
Nor de I eonsider your "20 year" remark a eritietam of my work that. I
cannot "take", I consider it a atatiatical error that, once (t has been
galled to your attention, you would want: to pepelr,.

Ae ever:
Noe