GOFAI was around for a lot longer than 10 years - it arguably started at the Dartmouth workshop and was still going strong in the '90s - so at least 40 years.
Re:How should we evaluate progress in AI?
by throwawayjava on Monday July 16, 2018 @04:13AM
(#17539570)
but the easy money didn't persist that entire time. Maybe 20 in total, max. more like 10 most places.
point is, most people funded by gofai money weren't doing agi. they were building pls, dbs, networks, etc.
That wasn't my experience - few people were really doing AGI (though some were, even up to the early 90s) but most effort in any area that was explicitly identified as AI was generally in applications (e.g. fault diagnosis and qualitative modelling - the areas I worked in).
GOFAI, as a 10ish year era of easy money for CS research agendas, was a relatively cheap investment and ultimately a tremendous financial, economic, and scientific success. If you're using functional languages, sql databases, or networked computers then you're benefitting from GOFAI. ATM you're using all three.