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      Military sets sights on virtual world

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      DM Osbon
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      Military sets sights on virtual world
      Nov 27, 2007 10:13:30 am
      Virtual wars take a step closer?

      Military sets sights on virtual world
      By Shaun Waterman

      http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071123/NATION/111230073/1002

      November 23, 2007

      By Shaun Waterman - U.S. military and intelligence agencies are increasingly making use of computer-generated virtual worlds for training, teleworking and trying to predict human behavior.

      The capabilities of so-called synthetic world software have increased at a huge rate since they were pioneered for the public by such games as "SimCity" and "Second Life." Now, scientists working for the military and U.S. intelligence want to capitalize on that notion.

      The U.S. Navy recently announced it was looking for a contractor to develop "a highly interactive, PC-based Human, Social and Culture Behavioral Modeling simulation tool to support training for military planners for handling insurgencies, small wars and/or emergent conflicts."

      According to a procurement document posted online, the software "should be game-based" and must be "flexible enough" to allow users to design their own scenarios, maps and "unique situations" as "plug-in modules to experiment and train with."

      The Navy project will join a growing list of programs seeking to leverage the power of such complex simulation programs for a variety of purposes.

      "There's a real big push in the military for this kind of thing," defense technology analyst and blogger Noah Shachtman told United Press International.

      The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, the research arm of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), has a project to use such software to help analysts share information.

      Jeffery Morrison, who runs the Analyst Space for Exploitation project for the DNI, told Government Executive Magazine that the project, known as A-SpaceX, would use avatars — the in-game representations of users — only when needed.

      Mr. Morrison told the magazine that elements of synthetic world programs could be used to help develop computer tools which support analysts' decision-making processes in what the magazine called "a true killer application that does not exist today."

      Meanwhile, the U.S. Army's Research, Development and Engineering Command is buying a system called AW-VTT, for Asymmetric Warfare Virtual Training Technology, from California-based Forterra Systems Inc., which creates closed online virtual worlds.

      According to the firm's Web site, the AW-VTT is a "training platform for joint, interagency and coalition operations in asymmetric and unconventional warfare, including counterterrorism, force-protection and missions other than war."

      Forterra's civilian platform, the On-Line Interactive Virtual Environment, is one of many products being used or developed for training first responders to cope with chemical, biological or radiological incidents.

      The AW-VTT uses actors to "play" the nontrainee avatars in the scenarios, rather than software to generate their behavior, as is usually done.

      Critics say the use of actors highlights the limits of synthetic world programs.

      Software can generate targets for first-person-shooter-type training platforms, or victims whom emergency responders must "treat" in a particular way to save. But attempting to use them to predict or model human behavior is "a really daunting task," Mr. Shachtman said.

      "A lot of counterinsurgency experts think this is the height of folly," he said of efforts to create simulations that would help predict how populations might react to military force.


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