Another old friend from back in the days before old age and disillusionment (aka 1997). I don’t do this sort of thing any more, but I’d really like to think about how it could be applied to more civilian activities.

Abstract

As the volumes of information available from modern sensors and sources increases, processing all available intelligence data has become too complex and time consuming for intelligence analysts. There is a need to assess how technology can and should be used to assist them, and for a clear view of the issues raised by the data and processing methods available. This paper discusses automated intelligence analysis, its impact and its role in modern conflict analysis.

1. Intelligence Analysis

Before we can automate intelligence analysis, we need to know what it does. The output of intelligence analysis (by human or machine) is intelligence: information that is pertinent to the current area of interest of a commander or policy maker, in a form that he can use to improve his position relative to another, usually opposing, commander. The other output of intelligence work is counterintelligence, misleading information supplied to the opposing commander (well-managed counterintelligence should also improve the commander

Something I had laying around the office; thought it would be useful for the archives in a “what i thought when I was 10 years younger” sort of way.

ABSTRACT

We describe sources of and techniques for handling uncertainty in military intelligence models. We discuss issues for extending and using these models to generate counterintelligence- recognise groups of uncertainly-labelled entities and recognise variations in behaviour patterns.

INTRODUCTION

Intelligence is the information that a commander uses to make his decisions. It is an informed view of the current area of interest of a commander or policymaker, in a form that he can use to improve his position relative to another, usually opposing, commander.
Uses of intelligence include the basis for command decision making and the creation of uncertainty in opposing commanders’ systems and minds. Commanders use intelligence to recognise situations (situation awareness), predict changes in situations, predict an enemy’s behaviour (threat assessment) and decide which actions to take (planning) The quality and availability of intelligence (rather than information) determines whether a force is reactive (can only react to its environment or opponent’s moves) or proactive (can make informed plans and manipulate its situation).
Two major problems for commanders in the Persian Gulf conflict were the volume and complexity of intelligence data. If these are to be alleviated, methods for producing efficient representations of input data and information must be found

Oh the questions, the questions. The more meetings I go to, the more I see the deep fundamental importance of asking and attempting to answer the right questions. And there are many wrong questions out there, especially (but definitely not limited to just) in AI. Having said there are wrong questions, I probably need to clarify that. There are very few invalid questions: most questions provoke a response, or thought, and therefore have a motive or reason. Now some questions are just plain immoral (such as “what’s the best way to kill a million people”), others are just plain insensible (“Hey you! The troll with the big bike! How come you’re so ugly?”) and some are just there for the fun of it. So also having said that there are wrong questions, I need to qualify again that it’s a subjective thing. There are good questions to ask here and now, and there are bad questions to ask here and now. I’m just hoping that I have enough good taste to tell the difference.

So: questions to think about sometime on this blog, with the proviso that some of these questions are just for fun, with no promise of anything even approaching a bounded sensible answer:

* How can we organise machine thought?
* How is machine thought similar to and different from human thought?
* How can we make machines more creative?
* How do humans make sense of information?
* What do we do when we’re not sure?
* What makes us human?
* How are some people geniuses, and can we replicate that with machines?

Sometime, I may try to arrange these into the possible and not here/not now categories. But that may have to wait until after I’ve attempted to start answering them.