Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Lighthill report stated that no part of the field had produced the major impact promised by early researchers. It argued that techniques worked only within small problem domains but failed to scale effectively.
James Lighthill completed his written report by July of 1972, and the council decided on publication in September. A public confrontation took place at the Royal Institution in London on the 9th of May 1973.
The Science Research Council used the report as the basis for ending support because AI techniques could not overcome combinatorial explosion. The government withdrew financial backing from projects deemed unable to solve realistic problems due to fundamental limitations.
Lighthill divided existing work into three distinct categories including Advanced Automation, Computer-based Central Nervous System research, and Bridge projects. Category B projects were declared failures because they could not mimic human eye-hand coordination effectively.
James Lighthill debated leading AI researchers including Donald Michie, John McCarthy, and Richard Gregory during the event. Stuart Sutherland, Roger Needham, Christopher Longuet-Higgins, and Donald Michie also provided alternative viewpoints alongside the main report.