Defence Security With Virtual Worlds

Advances in computerized modeling and prediction of group behavior, together with improvements in video game graphics, are making possible virtual worlds in which defense analysts can explore and predict results of many different possible military and policy actions, say computer science researchers at the University of Maryland in a commentary published in the November 27 issue of the journal Science. Defense analysts can understand the repercussions of their proposed recommendations for policy options or military actions by interacting with a virtual world environment. They can propose a policy option and walk skeptical commanders through a virtual world where the commander can literally 'see' how things might play out. This process gives the commander a view of the most likely strengths and weaknesses of any particular course of action. Computer scientists now know pretty much how to do this, and have created a ‘pretty good chunk’ of the computing theory and software required to build a virtual Afghanistan, Pakistan or another ‘world’.

Human analysts, with their real world knowledge and experience, will be essential partners in taking us the rest of the way in building these digital worlds and, then, in using them to predict courses of action most likely to build peace and security in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Researchers at the University of Maryland have developed a number of the computing pieces critical to building virtual worlds. These include stochastic opponent modeling agents (SOMA) -- artificial intelligence software that uses data about past behavior of groups in order to create rules about the probability of that group various actions in different situations; ‘cultural islands’, which provide a virtual world representation of a real-world environment or terrain, populated with characters from that part of the world who behave in accordance with a behavioral model; and forecasting ‘engines’ CONVEX and CAPE, which focus on predicting behavioral changes in groups based on validated on historical data.

More information:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091126173029.htm