0018-9162/98/$10.00 © 1998 IEEE January 1998 29 Innovation and Obstacles: The Futur e of Computing I n this excerpt from “Visions for the Future of the Fields,” a panel discussion held on the 10th anniversary of the US Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, experts identify crit- ical issues for various aspects of computing. In the accompanying sidebars, some of the same experts elaborate on points in the panel discussion in mini essays: David Clark, CSTB chairman, looks at the changes needed in computing science research, Mary Shaw of Carnegie Mellon University examines chal- lenges for software system designers, and Robert Lucky of Bellcore looks at IP dialtone, a new infra- structure for the Internet. Donald Greenberg of Cornell University rounds out the essays with an out- look on computer graphics. Finally, in an interview with William Wulf, president of the US National Academy of Engineering, Computer explores the roots of innovation and the broader societal aspects that will ultimately drive innovation in the near term. RECKLESS PACE OF INNOVATION Clark: We have heard the phrase “the reckless pace of innovation in the field.” I have a feeling our field has just left behind the debris of half-understood ideas in an attempt to plow into the future. Do you think we are going to grow up? Ten years from now, will we still say we have been driven by the reckless pace of inno- vation? Or will we, in fact, have been able to breathe long enough to codify what we have actually under- stood so far? Reddy: We have absolutely no control over the pace of innovation. It will happen whether we like it nor not. It is just a question of how fast we can run with it. Lucky: At Bell Labs, we used to talk about research in terms of 10 years. Now you can hardly see two weeks ahead. The question of what long-term research is all about remains unanswered when you cannot see what is out there to do research on. Nicholas Negroponte was saying recently that, when he started the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, his competition came from places like Bell Labs, Stanford University, and the University of California at Berkeley. Now he says his competition comes from 16-year-old kids. I see researchers working on good academic problems, and then two weeks later some young kids in a small community are out there doing it. There must still be good academic fields where you can work on long-term problems in the future, but the future is coming at us so fast that I just sort of look in the rear- view mirror. Shaw: I think innovation will keep moving; at least I hope so, because if it were not moving this fast, we would all be really good IBM 650 programmers by now. What will keep it moving is the demand from out- side. We have just begun to get over the hump where people who are not in the computing priesthood, and who have not invested many years in figuring out how to make computers do things, can actually make com- puters do things. As that becomes easier—it is not easy yet—more and more people will be demanding services tuned to their own needs. They will generate the demand that will keep the field growing. Hartmanis: We can project reasonably well what sili- con technology can yield during the next 20 years; the growth in computing power will follow the established pattern. The fascinating question is, what is the next technology to accelerate this rate and to provide the growth during the next century? Is it quantum com- puting? Could it really add additional orders of mag- nitude? What technologies, if any, will complement and/or replace the predictable silicon technology? Clark: Are growth and demand the same as innova- tion? We could turn into a transient decade of inter- disciplinary something, but does that actually mean there is any innovation in our field? Shaw: We have had some innovation, but it has not been our own doing. Things like spreadsheets and word processors, for example, have started to open the door to people who are not highly trained com- In this multidisciplinary glimpse forward, some of this decade’s key play- ers offer opinions on a range of topics—from what has driven progress, to where innovation will come from, and to obstacles we have yet to overcome. Moder ator : David D. Clark Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Chair of the Computer Science and Telecommuni- cations Board Panelists: Edward A. Feigenbaum US Air Force Juris Hartmanis Cornell University Robert W. Lucky Bellcore Robert M. Metcalfe International Data Group Raj Reddy Carnegie Mellon University Mary Shaw Carnegie Mellon University Cover Feature Excerpts of “Visions for the Future of the Fields,” Defining a Decade: Envisioning CSTB’s Second 10 Years, 1997 are reprinted with permission by the National Academy of Sciences. Courtesy of the National Academy Press, Washington, DC. .