ALPAC (Automatic Language Processing Advisory Committee) was a committee of seven scientists led by John R. Pierce, established in 1964 by the
United States government
The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a fede ...
in order to evaluate the progress in
computational linguistics
Computational linguistics is an Interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary field concerned with the computational modelling of natural language, as well as the study of appropriate computational approaches to linguistic questions. In general, comput ...
in general and
machine translation
Machine translation, sometimes referred to by the abbreviation MT (not to be confused with computer-aided translation, machine-aided human translation or interactive translation), is a sub-field of computational linguistics that investigates t ...
in particular. Its report, issued in 1966, gained notoriety for being very skeptical of research done in machine translation so far, and emphasizing the need for basic research in computational linguistics; this eventually caused the U.S. government to reduce its funding of the topic dramatically.
The ALPAC was set up in April 1964 with John R. Pierce as the chairman.
The committee consisted of:
# John R. Pierce, who at the time worked for
Bell Telephone Laboratories
Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984),
then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996)
and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007),
is an American industrial Research and development, research and scientific developm ...
#
John B. Carroll
John Bissell Carroll (June 5, 1916 – July 1, 2003) was an American psychologist known for his contributions to psychology, linguistics and psychometrics.Stansfield, Charles W. “Carroll, John Bissell.” ''Concise Encyclopedia of Educat ...
, a psychologist from
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...
# David G. Hays, a Machine Translation researcher from
RAND Corporation
The RAND Corporation (from the phrase "research and development") is an American nonprofit global policy think tank created in 1948 by Douglas Aircraft Company to offer research and analysis to the United States Armed Forces. It is financ ...
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to ...
#
Anthony G. Oettinger
Anthony "Tony" Gervin Oettinger (March 29, 1929 in Nuremberg, Germany – July 26, 2022) was a German-born American linguist and computer scientist best known for his work on information resources policy. Oettinger coined the term “compunication ...
, a Machine Translation researcher from Harvard University
#
Alan Perlis
Alan Jay Perlis (April 1, 1922 – February 7, 1990) was an American computer scientist and professor at Purdue University, Carnegie Mellon University and Yale University. He is best known for his pioneering work in programming languages and was t ...
, an Artificial Intelligence researcher from
Carnegie Institute of Technology
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...
University of Texas
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...
* Jules Mersel of Bunker-Ramo Corporation
ALPAC's final recommendations (p. 34) were, therefore, that research should be supported on:
# practical methods for evaluation of translations;
# means for speeding up the human translation process;
# evaluation of quality and cost of various sources of translations;
# investigation of the utilization of translations, to guard against production of translations that are never read;
# study of delays in the over-all translation process, and means for eliminating them, both in journals and in individual items;
# evaluation of the relative speed and cost of various sorts of machine-aided translation;
# adaptation of existing mechanized editing and production processes in translation;
# the over-all translation process; and
# production of adequate reference works for the translator, including the adaptation of glossaries that now exist primarily for automatic dictionary look-up in machine translation
History of artificial intelligence
The history of artificial intelligence (AI) began in ancient history, antiquity, with myths, stories and rumors of artificial beings endowed with intelligence or consciousness by master craftsmen. The seeds of modern AI were planted by philoso ...
*
History of machine translation
Machine translation is a sub-field of computational linguistics that investigates the use of software to translate text or speech from one natural language to another.
In the 1950s, machine translation became a reality in research, although ref ...
*
AI winter
In the history of artificial intelligence, an AI winter is a period of reduced funding and interest in artificial intelligence research.Lighthill Report
References
* John R. Pierce, John B. Carroll, et al., ''Language and Machines — Computers in Translation and Linguistics''. ALPAC report, National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council, Washington, DC, 1966.
ALPAC Report , Language and Machines — Computers in Translation and Linguistics. A Report by the Automatic Language Processing Advisory Committee, Washington, DC, 1966