Inside a 1930s passenger plane - photo

[uv8452]

"....before dependence on digital means." Few recognise (or: are able to see?) the unefficient side effects of the so-called C'A'D/CAM. Even fewer dare to call it a costly scam.

CAD/CAM had a predecessor that showed traits of a scam: Artificial Intelligence. To persuade the US Ministry of Defence to (generously) fund their academic environment, Messrs Simon and Newell predicted/promised in 1957 that within 10 years a digital computer would be the world's chess champion, compose music, would discover(!) and prove an important mathematical theorem, etc. etc.

A clearsighted Hubert Dreyfus (not to forget his brother Stuart; both working then at MIT) wrote a paper for the RAND Corp. (1961), which after his findings he could not help title "Alchemy and Artificial Intelligence". The well nourished AI academy waged war against the Dreyfus brothers and every AI critic. A quite reputed scientist (I do not get the name) commented 20 years later that it was still not advisable to be seen at lunch break with one of them. Over 30 years later the AI community struggled hard to explain the failure of Simon and Newell's prophecy. The 'Dreyfus affair'. Compiled by Pamela McCorduck in her AI history 'Machines who think'
The similarities to 'Waldsterben' and 'climate' and 'Corona' are obvious. Just the scales are different.