History: AI xor IR?! In the early 1970s, at a formative stage in the development of the discipline of artificial intelligence and information retrieval, funding agencies of the government, particularly DARPA, seemed forced to choose between AI and IR as methodologies for writing elaborate programs. Leading scientists of both groups made predictions about what their technologies could do in the foreseeable future. The claims of AI seem to have won the day, because after this period AI benefited from a great infusion of defense dollars relative to IR. Whatever other consequences these early days had, they did not breed good feelings between the IR and AI communities. For example, when I was thinking about graduate school I had a meeting with Gerry Salton at Cornell. Entirely ignorant (then) of who he was and his position in AI, I began our interview by mentioning that my primary research interest was artificial intelligence! Suffice it to say, I was not accepted into Cornell’s graduate program:).