Operations research in a conversational environment

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the types of operations research techniques and the kinds of operations research/management science problems that are possible in the conversational or interactive programming environment. It is widely agreed that very meaningful technological advances can be made by merging the things that a computer does best with the things that a human being does best. This is often discussed in terms of a man-machine symbiosis, cybernetics or "interfaces." The shortcomings in all discussions of this sort are twofold: first, a characterization of problem attributes which necessitates the power of an interactive environment is missing; and, second, very few practical or even implementable applications are ever discussed.