KEYNOTE SOME NOTES ON THE TECHNOLOGY OF RECOGNITION

We are here today,I take it, to appraise what has been done, and to discern the future, if we may. I notice that a man's worth these times is in the words he speaks and writes. The understanding that may lead to a publishable paper is much to be preferred to the understanding that leads to a useful machine. "But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." Can we say anything true and useful in generalization about Pattern Recognition? Are there any broad statements that have any chance of being helpful to someone building a better machine?