NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/sci/environm/14705

Internet Message Format | 1993-01-21 | 2.9 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!pipex!warwick!uknet!edcastle!cam
From: [e-mail] (Chris Malcolm)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Idiotic Japan Bashing
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 21 Jan 93 13:21:28 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Organization: Edinburgh University
Lines: 46

In article <[e-mail]> mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman) writes:

>For example, a 50 year hiring plan is
>ridiculous for almost any company because you don't know what
>functions will be automated over the next 40 years.

A plan doesn't have to be set in concrete. In this case you decide
what things are likely to be automated, what things may be automated,
the likely consequences, etc., and make a plan which involves a number
of options, decision points, and review points. It wouldn't surprise
me if there were Japanese companies which had 50 year hiring plans.
The point is that if you are right you come out ahead of the game, and
if you are wrong you come out no worse off than the idiots who think
the game is unplayable.

My business is robotics research, and I sometimes get interviewed by
interested companies. I always ask them about how far ahead they plan
and budget, because some of my research is long-term. I am staggered
by how much further ahead Japanese companies routinely plan and
budget. The big companies often plan, in informed and carefully
researched detail, many decades ahead, where US and UK companies will
refuse to look more than five years ahead. The last Japanese
businessman I spoke to said his idea of a _medium_ term company-funded
and -staffed research programme was twenty years. He also funds long
term research programmes, with big teams, not just a boffin in a hut.
How long is long term? He just laughed and said "Much longer than
twenty years!  For my children's children."

In the UK it is hard to even get funding in a University for the kind
of research routinely done by Japanese companies with their own funds.
With some notable exceptions, most UK companies don't do research;
what they call research is short term development. They expect
Universities to do the research for them, and hand them working
manufacturable prototypes.

And what is the West doing? Running down its education and research
infrastructure. It is clear that the torch of the leading edge of our
industrial civilisation has already passed over to the Far East.  It's
just going to take a decade or so before the man in the street and the
politicians reluctantly acknowledge what can no longer be denied. And
the Japanese will say "Western men are such good entertainers!" as we
tout for their tourist yen.
--
Chris Malcolm    [e-mail]          [phone]
Department of Artificial Intelligence,    Edinburgh University
5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK                DoD #205