Pentagon to Significantly Cut CS Research

GabrielF writes "Over the last few decades, DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has funded some of the most successful computer science research projects in history, such as the Internet. However, according to the New York Times, DARPA has recently decided to significantly cut funding of open-ended computer science research projects in favor of projects that will yield short-term military results. Leading computer scientists, such as David Patterson, the head of the ACM are outraged and worried."

Comments

zerg

[Lord Omlette]

Great! We didn't want to compete w/ India anyway...

I guess someone important finally watched

[Anonymous Coward]

all 3 Terminator movies in a row and clued in after a night of hard thinking that "Skynet v0.8" was too suspiciouly named to continue to v1.0.

This Totally Makes Sense...

[bennomatic]

With advances in communications technology, our Defense Department can outsource this sort of research to universities in countries where the cost is much lower. Countries like Iran, Yemen and North Korea are on the forefront of nuclear defense research, and would be happy to accept our funds for these sorts of purposes.

Re:Well...

[flyingsquid]

Well, like they say, it's killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. Maybe this move can get some new weapons system out there a few months earlier, but in the meantime, you're not inventing the technologies which permit whole new classes of weapons systems.

I'll put it in StarCraft terms: you're spending your minerals on upgrading your Zealots, and failing to invest in the pylons and tech structures that would allow you to build a whole frickin' fleet of Protoss Carriers.

Re:Twilight of the empire

[lsmeg]

It's no exaggeration to say that over 70% of all research students are foreign--simply because there are not many qualified US students. (It's a different story if we needed literature or communication students--we've got tons of those.)

Id say were loosing on that front 2