The paper examines the extent to which a less mechanistic approach may be possible and suggests limitations that may be imposed not only by human limitations but by difficulties of correspondence and significance between machine and manual situations. 1. INTRODUCTION LET us assume that automatic data processing (A.D.P.) can do the things that we are planning for it to do at present, such as payroll, stores accounting, and statistical analyses. There will, of course, be many problems to be solved before these tasks can be regarded as satisfactorily completed, and before we can speak with confidence out of experience. But these problems do not appear to have any fundamentally insuperable content. The difficul-- ties are manmade rather than intrinsic. They originate in part from the difficulty of adjusting the organisms of office life to new rhythms, new environments, new relationships, in part from imperfect understanding and appreciation of the power and range of new techniques, and in part from a lack of perception of the limitations and deficiencies of these systems. We may reasonably suppose that, during the course of the next five years, these difficulties will be overcome and that, throughout Government Departments and Industry, there will be a growing number of installations at work on these jobs. With this perhaps over--simplified premise, it is not too early to start thinking about a possible future form of A.D.P. in Government Departments in, say, ten or fifteen years' time.

Proceedings of the Symposium on the Mechanisation of Thought Processes.Teddington, Middlesex, England: National Physical Laboratory.

Report VG-1196-G-1, Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory, Buffalo, NY

"We ask first whether we need a theory of creative thinking distinct from a theory of problem solving. Subject to minor qualifications, we conclude there is no such need -- that we call problem solving creative when the problems solved are relatively new and difficult. Next, we summarize what has been learned about problem solving by simulating certain human problem solving processes with digital computers. Finally, we indicate some of the differences in degreee that might be observed in comparing relatively creative with relative routine problem solving."RAND Corporation Paper P-1320, Santa Monica, Calif

From the The Teddington Conference– D. V. Blake and A. M. Uttley (Eds.). Proceedings of the Symposium on Mechanisation of Thought Processes, National Physical Laboratory, Teddington, Middlesex, England, London: H. M. Stationary Office.

In Applications of Logic to Advanced Digital Computer Programming, Ann Arbor, Mich: University of Michigan Press

This is a case study in problem-solving, representing part of a program of research on complex information-processing systems. We have specifieda system for finding proofs of theorems in elementary symbolic logic, and by programming a computer to these specifications, have obtained empirical data on the problem-solving process in elementary logic. The program is called the Logic Theory Machine (LT); it was devised to learn how it is possible to solve difficult problems such as proving mathematical theorems, discovering scientific laws from data, playing chess, or understanding the meaning of English prose.The research reported here is aimed at understanding the complexp rocesses (heuristics) that are effective in problem-solving. Hence, we are not interested in methods that guarantee solutions, but which require vastamounts of computation. Rather, we wish to understand how a mathematician, for example, is able to prove a theorem even though he does not know when he starts how, or if, he is going to succeed.Proceedings of the Western Joint Computer Conference, 15:218-239. Reprinted in Feigenbaum and Feldman, Computers and Thought (1963).

The Dawn of Dynamic Programming Richard E. Bellman (1920–1984) is best known for the invention of dynamic programming in the 1950s. During his amazingly prolific career, based primarily at The University of Southern California, he published 39 books (several of which were reprinted by Dover, including Dynamic Programming, 42809-5, 2003) and 619 papers. Despite battling the crippling effects of a brain injury, he still published 100 papers during the last eleven years of his life. He was a frequent informal advisor to Dover during the 1960s and 1970s. Professor Bellman was awarded the IEEE Medal of Honor in 1979 "for contributions to decision processes and control system theory, particularly the creation and application of dynamic programming."

John Wiley & Sons, New York

Proc. First Intern. Congress of Cybernetics, Namur, 8S-56