to open next chapter. - NASA's History Office

“Everything Real Is Rational...”
our communications technology and radio engineering. During the war with
Finland, scandalous inadequacies had appeared in our communications equipment,
despite our scientists’ achievements in the field of radio engineering.
At the beginning of World War II, we recognized how far behind the Germans
we were in terms of our radio communications—both in general and with particular
regard to aviation.Aircraft transceiver stations were complex and of poor quality.
They primarily used short- and medium-wave ranges. Radio stations were
installed only in squadron commanders’ airplanes. For example, by 1 January 1940,
in the Moscow Military District, radio stations were installed in only 43 out of 583
fighter aircraft.The primary forms of communication in the air were signal flares
and rocking the wings. Ground radio support systems for flying in difficult meteorological
conditions and at night were just being developed. The lack of radio
facilities on the ground and in the air during the first year of the war contributed
to additional losses. In many cases, it was impossible to direct flights during air
battles or guide aircraft back to their home airfield at night or in bad weather.
Aircraft control via radio within a group, guidance from the ground, and elementary
radio navigation did not appear until after the war had started. I am dwelling
on this problem because I dealt directly with aviation radio communications
during the war.
In general assemblies of the Academy of Sciences, I often sit next to my
comrade from my student years—Academician Pospelov. While digging through
old papers, I found his notes on the philosophy of Hegel.After returning them to
their author fifty years later, I asked what he now thought on that subject.“It’s all
rubbish!” replied Germogen Sergeyevich Pospelov—academician, general, and
specialist in the design of artificial intelligence systems.
Using an example from my biography, Germogen defined the problem of artificial
intelligence in his own way.
“Our living intellect sprang from a chaos, into which nature was trying to bring
systemic order.We have not succeeded in creating artificial intelligence because we
desire to exclude chance as the primary property of chaos and establish a strict,
causal sequence in decision-making. At the same time, some chance incidents
precipitating from a systemic conformity with law are fortunate. Remember 1937
when, after the loss of Levanevskiy, all of our classmates and I were convinced that
you would be repressed.After all, you were the lead engineer for aircraft electrical
equipment.According to NKVD logic back then, you should have had to do time.
This would not be chance, but conformity with law. The fact that they did not
touch you and we are now peacefully conversing is indeed a chance incident that
is characteristic of chaos.”
145