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that, to the extent that it is possible to quantify, a 20-percent
level of uncertainty (in the ability to predict a program's
behavior) in a project constitutes "technical risk"43--which, in
turn, would result in a significant chance of failure.44 Dr.
McDermott was of the belief that Norwest would not have engaged in
any project in which there was a greater than 50-percent chance of
failure in the first place.
Finally, Dr. McDermott noted that the field of computer
science does not engage in research in the same manner as other
fields--i.e., the "white lab coat" experiments. Rather, he
asserted that computer science research is less formal.
B. Respondent's Experts
i. Dr. Randall Davis
One of respondent's experts was Randall Davis, Ph.D., a
professor of management in the electrical engineering and computer
science department at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
He previously served as an associate director at the Artificial
Intelligence Laboratory at MIT. Dr. Davis has been a consultant
43 In his rebuttal report, Dr. McDermott defined the type
of technical risk that arises in most cases as "the risk that a
given computing configuration, or `architecture,' might not be
programmable to perform a task within realistic time and space
bounds, assuming that there are compelling reasons to use that
architecture."
44 Dr. McDermott noted, however, that software projects
fail for many reasons that have nothing to do with research or
technical risk, but rather with a vendor's failure to deliver a
product on time, changing conditions, or the incompetency of the
programmers.
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