Customer Reviews

The Fifth Generation

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I was reading "The Age of Intelligent Machines" by Raymond Kurzweil and was intrigued by the section on expert systems. He included an article by Edward A. Feigenbaum, one of the early names in the development of expert systems.

I was interested enough to see if Feigenbaum had written any books. What better place to get the answer but Amazon.com?

One of the books written by Feigenbaum was this one, "The Fifth Generation: Artificial Intelligence and Japan's Computer Challenge to the World".

Now, I had heard about the Fifth Generation computer project back in the 1980's. But, I never heard what became of it.

A quick search on the internet showed that it died. For example, this quote from Wikipedia: "By any measure the project was an abject failure."

My first reaction was disbelief.

I did more research on the internet to make sure other opinions agreed. They did.

But I was still intrigued by the Fifth Generation computer project and expert systems. So, I bought the book from one of the Amazon Used and New sellers. I figured I might enjoy the story and learn something about expert systems at the same time. The price was right, too.

The book reads like a novel. The book was written before the project got into trouble so you get to see the characters while they still had big dreams.

The story has all the qualities of a good historical non-fiction book. It has human interest. It takes place in a foreign country, much different than we in the U.S. are accustomed to. Regardless of success or failure, the participants knew their ambitious undertaking would make history. Never before had a project of such magnitude been attempted.

The book was written so that non-technical types would buy it and read it without getting discouraged. Yet, it was technical enough that someone with a technical background in computers, like myself (I'm a programmer), could enjoy it as both reading for pleasure and reading to gain additional knowledge (about expert systems, artificial intelligence, and Japan's MITI).

Of course, if you're really serious about expert systems, there are better books. For example, "Expert Systems: Principles and Programming, Fourth Edition : Principles and Programming".