Researchers Turn To Artificial Intelligence And Real Data to Improve War Games

Image: VIRTUAL WAR IS HELL University of Maryland researchers are developing a virtual world designed to help intelligence analysts simulate the consequences of their antiterrorism policies. IMAGE COURTESY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

From Scientific American:

University of Maryland researchers have created a virtual world they hope intelligence analysts will use to develop antiterrorism policies.

Virtual worlds such as Second Life and World of Warcraft allow players to adopt virtual personas or engage in combat on digital battlefields, but what if similar technology could let government intelligence analysts play out antiterrorism scenarios that would help with better understandings of the consequences of Middle East policy recommendations? A team of researchers at the University of Maryland in College Park, Md., believe they have created just such a virtual world using computational models that mimic terrorist behavior based a variety of factors, including social, political and religious beliefs.

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My Comment: I guess this will be the closest that we will ever come to mimicking real war/conflict/terrorism scenarios.