Video Excerpt

IRV
What were some of the common criticism of optimization as the field was developing?

PHIL
Oversell. A number of operations research practitioners promised the world, thinking they could revolutionize the business if they had the right tools. They found out that you really couldn't.

It was a little more dramatic in game theory. There was a time when a number of us felt game theory was going to revolutionize life. The military would use it all the time, so would businesses. It would drive society almost without a flaw.

IRV
Why didn't game theory satisfy those expectations?

PHIL
Because it can't answer enough questions. You do a great job on a zero-sum, two-person game. But that's not what life really is. Life is a very large number of persons in a non-zero-sum game. People are still fiddling with solution concepts and still working on the theory to try to get some rationality into it. And it hasn't been done.

IRV
Would you say the same kinds of things apply to linear programming and other areas of optimization?

PHIL
I don't think so much. Most practitioners are aware of the limitations and how to use the tools. As I said, there was a serious period of oversell in the operations research community, but that's died off now.

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