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Software Agents Can Help Time-Stressed Teams 136

Posted by timothy from the or-set-skynet-in-motion dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "Penn State researchers have developed software agents which can help human teams to react more accurately and quickly in time-stressed situations than human teams acting alone. According to this news release, the software was tested in a military command-and-control simulation. "When time pressures were normal, the human teams functioned well, sharing information and making correct decisions about the potential threat." But when the pressure increased, the human teams made errors who would have cost lives in real situations. The decisions taken by agent-supported human teams were much better. Now, it remains to be seen if this software can be used in other stressful situations, such as for emergency management operations. Read more for other details, references and illustrations about this project."
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Software Agents Can Help Time-Stressed Teams More

Software Agents Can Help Time-Stressed Teams

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  • software making military decisions? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by lordkuri ( 514498 ) on Sunday July 31, 2005 @02:36PM (#13209185)
    Is this the beginning of Skynet?

  • *shudder* (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "I see that you're trying to bomb someone..."

  • Clippy (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 31, 2005 @02:38PM (#13209197)
    Obligatory clippy quote:

    "I see you are trying to bomb a school in Iraq. Would you like to use
    1) Cluster bombs
    2) Napalm
    3) Air burst firestorms
    4) Nuclear bunker-buster
    Select one of these options."
    • 5).All of the above
    • Not that I'm a big fan of the war in Iraq, but that post does deserve a response.

      I see you are violating the Geneva Convention and trying to generate propaganda. Would you like to house your combat troops in:
      1) Hospitals
      2) Schools
      3) Mosques
      4) Fragile sites of cultural, historic, and religious signifigance
      Select one of these options.

      -

  • Assisted Operations (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Renraku ( 518261 ) on Sunday July 31, 2005 @02:39PM (#13209201) Homepage
    Software assistance isn't so bad when you can click cancel and it takes all of one second out of your life. In a combat situation? What if something outside of the plan happened? Which often does during times of war and/or duress.

    • Re:Assisted Operations (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Edit -> Undo Bombing That Shit

  • Misleading Summary (Score:5, Informative)

    by VoidWraith ( 797276 ) <void_wraith AT hotmail DOT com> on Sunday July 31, 2005 @02:40PM (#13209204)
    First of all, the summary doesn't explain anything about what this thing actually does, just that it involves stressful situations.

    Even reading the article doesn't make it very clear, but it turns out that this is merely a system for getting information from one person to another more quickly. How this is a headline I do not know.
    • Weird enough that is news.
      If you go into an airtraffic control centre, and see how they pass information, little strips of paper attached to wooden blocks, or rudimentary digital systems, progress in this area is needed very much.
      • If you go into an airtraffic control centre, and see how they pass information, little strips of paper attached to wooden blocks...

        Actually, you'll usually find that they don't pass information like that, they use that as per-user temp-storage space... Information is typically communicated between ATC personnel verbally; the receiving controller writes the information down on his blocks, and uses them for as long as (s)he is guiding said aircraft.
      • After having been in a real control center (and I'm talking about a real FAA center, not the control tower at Podunk regional) I can tell you that they use a fully digital customized GUI to track planes and everthing is tracked electrnically... with thermal printers that print out the paper strips you mentioned because...
        the old system sits right next to each workstation and every controller is still fully trained and proficient in building takeoff & landing ladders. In the event of a major emergency

  • Oh great (Score:2, Informative)

    by JediTrainer ( 314273 )
    Cue the Clippy jokes. Ideally put them all under this thread to keep them contained, please.
    • You look like you're trying to direct the collective actions of slashbots. Would you like to:
      * Abort
      * Cancel
      * Take heed of an entirely unrelated suggestion
    • It seems that you have pulled the trigger multiple times. Would you like me to tell you about autofire?

  • I look at it this way... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Announcer ( 816755 ) on Sunday July 31, 2005 @02:43PM (#13209226) Homepage
    Anything that can be used to save the lives of our brave young men and women is worth discussing and implementing.

    If this software can be set up and used by our Military, even if it only saves *one* life, it will have been worth it.
    • "Anything that can be used to save the lives of our brave young men and women is worth discussing and implementing."

      I agree with you, we need to get out of Iraq yesterday.

    • Re:I look at it this way... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Jaime2 ( 824950 ) on Sunday July 31, 2005 @04:16PM (#13209735)
      Simplistics attitudes like this get in the way of real decision making.

      What if by allocating resources to this project, the project to build a resource allocation system for medical personnel is scrapped?

      Anyone who says "If it saves only one life..." has turned off their brain. How about this... We take your house and turn it into a homeless shelter (you included). It will save several lives. If we do it to 100 people in 50 cities in colder climates, we can save hundreds of lives in one winter, for almost no money.
    • When I read the parent post, I get visions of Homer -- hand over heart -- singing something akin to a national anthem while watching the Amercian embassy toilet counter-act the Coriolis effect of the Southern Hemisphere
    • if it only saves *one* life, it will have been worth it.

      Translation: won't somebody PLEASE think of the children?!?

      There could easily be better places to spend money that would be thrown into this. If it saves only one life, it's not worth much more than the time one person put into it. Please, think practically, not idealistically.

      -DrkShadow
    • What is with you people, anyway? It appears to me that none of you have any family members serving in the Military. I do. If this software saves lives, I am all for it. Call it "idealistic" if you want, that's your problem.

      I prefer to think of this as being a tool that can help our Troops increase their accuracy during the high stress of combat.

      I stand by my original post: If it saves even *one* life, it will be worth it. I will add that the *more* lives it saves, the better.
  • Agent Smith, he's a real hardass.

  • Pulled both ways (Score:2, Insightful)

    by soma_0806 ( 893202 )

    This is a tough one. My initial reaction is, "Egads, (yes, I talk like this), with the possibility for bugs, hang-time, etc., obvious NO!"

    However, if in reality, the possibility of some glitch causing a bad decision is, say, 1 in 100, and the frequency of these pressurized teams making the obviously wrong decision is around 1 in 10, then I'd say go for it.

    The point is, we need to know the rates/probablities of failure for both systems. Failure of some sort is inevitable, just how often and how badly a

  • The same model works in self defense (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Colin Smith ( 2679 ) on Sunday July 31, 2005 @02:45PM (#13209245)
    If you have to consciously think then you lose. Thinking takes too long. It has to be reflex/muscle memory/autopilot or whatever you want to call it.

    Which is why all the repetitive training, the high pressure fighting during practice. And it's also why books and videos though good for imparting information can never help when the real thing happens.

     
    • Thinking takes too long.

      Actually I believe the problem is that thinking under stress works poorly, and trying to come to a good conclusion/plan of action under such a scenario takes too long. A lot of your martial arts is spent clearing your mind so you can think effectively in spite of the situation. Thinking is actually pretty important.

      I remember hearing that women who have taken self-defense don't necessarily do any better than women who have taken self-defense (in situations in which life/property are
      • "A lot of your martial arts is spent clearing your mind so you can think effectively in spite of the situation. Thinking is actually pretty important."

        No, it's more than that, it's fatal. You clear your mind to get it out of the way. It also helps sweep the emotion aside. Thinking causes you to hesitate and to freeze. If you're thinking you are not responding.

        "The problem stems from having too many tools in the weapons arsenal, and not being sure which one to use."

        Actually the problem stems from having to c
    • Three minutes' thought would suffice to find this out; but thought is irksome and three minutes is a long time.

      - A.E. Houseman

  • Microsoft gonna get in on this? (Score:3, Funny)

    by mendaliv ( 898932 ) on Sunday July 31, 2005 @02:45PM (#13209247)
    My god I hope MS doesn't create an Agent for military purposes.

    I can see it now...

    Looks like you're trying to take out a machine gun nest!
    "Hi! I'm Charlene the M-14! I can help you make your assault! Would you like to..."
    *Call for helicopter support *Use diversionary tactics *Throw a grenade

  • NO (Score:2)

    by vga_init ( 589198 )
    TIME can help time-stressed teams.

    Managers everywhere are going to read this and drool because they think they can push their programming teams to meet the outrageous release dates set by people who have most likely never written a line of code in their life.

    FYI, programmers/engineers are NOT soldiers.

    • YES (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Moraelin ( 679338 ) on Monday August 01, 2005 @03:18AM (#13212188) Journal
      Actually, we already _are_ using software agents to work a lot faster. Compilers, IDEs, frameworks, you name it. That's what they're there for.

      Agents to help decision making? Well, that's what syntax highlighting, auto-completion, help files, and other tools in the IDE do for me. They let me decide faster what can I use there.

      (Which also addresses the flood of "ugh! they're making Clippy!" posts. There are at least a dozen tools I use every day that aren't Clippy. Just because one tool is retarded, doesn't mean they all are.)

      And they _do_ allow us to achieve deadlines that were unthinkable back in the days of coding in hex/octal and counting the bytes by hand.

      The problem isn't the reliance on _good_ tools. The problem is, well, bad management. (Including buying the wrong tools, but that's a topic for itself.)

      I really hope more managers will read threads like these, because there's one important message there: stressed people make more mistakes. And according to other studies, some of which were linked to by /. too, tired people make more mistakes too.

      And between those two, you have the whole picture of what's wrong with 84 hour weeks and other PHB-style management techniques. It's not that programmers aren't soldiers. It's just that humans (programmers, soldiers, etc) are not machines. A computer can work on SETI packets 24x7 and do proportionally more work than 8x5. A human can't.

      Since in programming most of the time is spent in debugging and maintenance, not in just typing code, past a point it's exactly that making more mistakes (which need to be debugged... again) and taking weird shortcuts (which will bog down maintenance) that's ending up costing more time than it saves.

      Not that I'm setting my hopes too high, though. There are managers which do have a clue, and then there are the PHB's. Those who fall in the second category, well, I just can't see them getting a clue, even if it was written in big letters on a billboard in front of their office.

  • Ugh. (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    http://www.masternewmedia.org/2003/11/05/the_futur e_of_web_conferencing_good_interviews_roland_pique paille.htm [masternewmedia.org]

    Independent, eclectic, multidisciplinary, witty.

    Here is Roland Piquepaille, unique scientist, researcher, reporter, opinion maker and journalist who doesn't wait for the approval fo the Queen to speak his mind out loud.

    Roland is one of the high priests of the blogosphere, one very qualified writer and attentive spectator to the ongoing phantasmagoric circus offered by new technologies and their ne
    • What makes his stories so successful? ...The best blogs, we found, are not those that actually get the most page views in a day, or that get the most links. In fact, the blogs that get the most links are the ones who find the best blogs and then point the best blogs out to the rest of the world.

      Uh.... Huh?
    • We like ourselves, don't we, Roland?

      And here I thought he was just in it for the advertising revenue.

    • Scientist? Researcher? WTF??

      He is neither. At best, he is a "pop" science writer, like Cringely, but even people like Cringely aren't self-aggrandizing or showboating like Roland Poop-pile.

      He is just some frenchman with a modem and a blog service. He just happens to be a good writer (more like summarizer, since his articles are just based on other people's work). As far as wit is concerned, I've seen none of that demonstrated. Journalists don't copy what is in the newspaper, they actually go out and FIND TH
      • Pique:
        1. To cause to feel resentment or indignation,
        2. To provoke; arouse
        3. To pride (oneself):
        4. Prick

        Paille:
        1. Straw, being something of little to no substance or value.

        Hmm... A more fitting name could not be found.

  • Not on my watch (Score:5, Insightful)

    by zappepcs ( 820751 ) on Sunday July 31, 2005 @02:57PM (#13209333) Journal
    I have been part of teams working under pressure, and there is little that I can see of value in a clippy if the team is actually well trained and have worked together.

    Human interaction changes dramatically under pressure to perform. Long sentences can become single words or syllables, yet full communication is achieved. An well trained team member begins to anticipate the action of other team members, in ways that clippy cannot do.

    The parallel like processing of the human mind still outperforms that of any computer in small paradigms. Even in military situations, no computer application can apply all the relelvant information from other team members and information sources in a way that can replace or even assist in those decisions. If a team member forgets part of their job, it is usually not because s/he is under stress, it is because of lack of training or experience. Substituting computer assistance for training and experience is an EXTREMELY dangerous thing in my opinion, especially where human life is at risk.

    Just my two cents.
    • I think it would depend on the scenario. If you were on a SEAL team working to sink an enemy ship in a harbor, then you would be right on. However, if you are in an environment like NORAD, it might make sense to use it. Or maybe not - WOULD YOU LIKE TO PLAY A GAME? =)
    • If a team member forgets part of their job, it is usually not because s/he is under stress, it is because of lack of training or experience.
      Lack of experience causes memory loss?
      Please explain.

    • Re:Not on my watch (Score:4, Interesting)

      by sean23007 ( 143364 ) on Sunday July 31, 2005 @03:27PM (#13209492) Homepage Journal
      What would be interesting is if the software agent could be programmed/adapted for each individual team. The team uses those single word/syllable communication methods, and the computer is made to understand them (during training exercises). Then, in high-stress situations, when that word/syllable is uttered by one of the teammates, the communication is put into the software system. The computer knows what all the team members collectively knows. Then it is able to make recommendations on course of action that the individual team members might not be able to make, due to the way humans are affected by stress.

      The way I see this, it doesn't replace good people, good training, and good exercises, it merely assists the people when they need it. I think it could be interesing. It would only work, however, if it were completely transparent. No little application running outside of their normal software suite that pops up and asks for confirmation. Instead, it should be built into the software they normally use and should alert the user only when it has a recommendation. All users are notified simultaneously, or it could be given only to the team leader, who could have final say over whether the computer recommendation is valid or not.

      I can even see this kind of system reducing the stress for teams in these situations.

      • Re:Not on my watch (Score:3, Insightful)

        by zappepcs ( 820751 )
        The trouble, as I see it in what you say is that the nuances of human communication cannot be fully categorized or recorded. Today in training, the word 'gotcha' may indicate target lock for two team members working in a tank, tomorrow, or even in three hours, it could signify that one team member understands the other. Situational relevance of communication causes extreme difficulty for computers to immitate humans, or even play along. That is why experience and training cannot be substituted with a comput
        • So the computer just has to check through both of those cases to see which is more likely. If one teammate has just said something, then "gotcha" probably means that they understand. If a person has just made a target lock (done through the computer) then it doesn't mean "they understand" it means they've locked onto someone. The key is giving the computer as much information as possible and programming it to respond correctly.
    • It all boils down to how good the information you are getting, and how good your training is.

      There's not enough information in TFA to determine how much work the agents are actually doing... whether they are making decisions on their own, or simply hiliting and collating what appears to be relevant information.

      If one of the humans has to collect information from several sources and collate it, what does it hurt for the computer to do that, and include a recommendation... enough training and the recommendati
    • If a team member forgets part of their job, it is usually not because s/he is under stress, it is because of lack of training or experience

      I think you may be mistaking the type of stress one normally finds in an office to that experienced by soldiers, for example. The former, whilst often debilitating, doesn't compare to the massive overload of information that a human is presented with in combat.
      You have to bear in mind that supressing the basic urge to dig a hole and hide is taking a lot of effort, an

  • Would you like me to
    (a) Tell you not to panic and make soothing sounds?
    (b) Sound disturbing alarm klaxon noises and make with the flashing lights?
    (c) Stop announcing the imminient destruction countdown at 10 so its a bit of a surprise?
    (d) Place an online order for incontinence pants in case you have another little fear induced accident?
    (e) Fuck you!, its every machine for itself, I'm out of here.
  • Proper management can help time-stressed teams. Everything else is just extra maintenance.
  • This is the first step towards a systems similar to Skynet. Would you really want a computer urging you to push that launch button?
  • I have a valid message. Stand by to authenticate.
    I agree with authentication also, sir.

    Entering launch code: DLG-2209-TVX
    Launch code confirmed.

    Holy shit!

    All right lets do it. Enable missiles.
    Target selection complete. Time on target selection complete.
    Yield selection complete.
    I need to get someone at the phone.
    Number one enabled, two, three, four, SAC.
    Try SAW HQ on the HF.
    five, ..ten. All missiles enabled.
    That's not the correct procedure.
    Screw the procedure. I want somebody on the goddamn phone before I kil
  • I'm not familiar with this area of research, but I am a CompSci grad student.

    The experiment is basically three players controlling scouting, defense, and resource collection in a simple real-time strategy game. Waves of incoming units must be identified, and if from a hostile force, destroyed by the defender or avoided by the resource collector. The objective of the mission is to maximise resource collection while not using defensive forces against unidentified units. The players communicate using highly co
  • Systems like this have been around for a long time. Does anyone object to Friend or Foe identification systems? They aren't perfect, but they have saved a lot of lives. How about targeting systems?, auto pilot? Hell, many planes wouldn't even fly if they weren't actually flown by a computer. Computers make a lot of our decisions for us every day. As long as the systems are designed to work WITH the team and not trying to control the team, it will probably work out well.
  • If I'm under stress, the last thing I need is a stupid program sitting at the side of my screen interupting me. After about half an hour I'd xkill it and that would be that.
  • I vaguely recall from the Falklands war, that the time between an incoming Exocet missile coming over the horizon, and hitting a ship, was of the order of tens of seconds.

    Okay not all incoming hostile forces are doing MACH 3, at 15 foot above the ground, but that is "ancient" technology.

    Comment was made (possibly untrue) that the computers automatically determined the incoming to have been French, and thus probably not hostile, and so didn't use the remaining seven seconds to try and shoot it out of the air
  • Carpenters using hammers found more productive than those without.

    I guess this is another way of showing that humans can only handle so many raw bits of information per second, and computers are great at compressing information. I think computers are destined to be the best secretaries imaginable, and not a whole lot more (in our life time). When we each have our own personal assistants sorting and organizing for us, we can have efficiencies currently unheard of.

    What concerns me though, is that perhaps no
  • You see an Agent, you do what we do. Run.
  • ...software aids in human decision and management. More at 11.

    Seriously, this is how businesses function. Data management is huge. Slapping on buzzwords doesn't make it any more unique.

  • When Time Exits (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Quirk ( 36086 ) on Sunday July 31, 2005 @07:23PM (#13210422) Homepage Journal
    Events that pose immenent death, for me, seem to happen outside of time and the actions taken to escape death are so focused on the components of the situation that all else is voided.

    For example, just out of highschool I took a summer job as a hooker (insert jokes here). I was a hooker on a log salvage operation in the mountains on the west coast, (Canada). As a hooker my job was to catch a hook (thus hooker) on the end of a long steel cable and attach it to thickly braided nylon cord, braided at the end of the cord into an eye, wrapped around a section of log to be salvaged. (The fun part of the job was ridding the hook from one salvage site to another... I would wrap my legs around the hook on the end of the cable and the chopper pilot would fly me from one mountain side to another. Very illegal, but oh what a rush.) At one site the chopper came in and titled away to "throw" the hook at me. The idea was that the chopper tilted away from me, guiding the cable hook to me; I would catch the hook in one hand, with the eye of the nylon cord in my other hand, snap the hook into the eye of the cord and the chopper would take off, still tilted away from the mountain side, taking the log section away to a dump. It called for speed, concentration and preparation. The nylon cord had to be looped just so on the log section, so that it wouldn't tangle. On one occassion the chopper came in, tilted, and feed me the hook. I snapped the hook to the cord and threw my hands back signaling the chopper to fly off. What I hadn't seen was that someone had made the cord too long and had left it looped on the ground. My right foot was in the loop. The chopper took off at about 50 Km, the loop began to close. Between the chopper going away at 50 Km and the log section weighing in at 450 Kg my chances of survival were negligible. Even if I had just lost my leg the nearest hospital was an hour plus away by chopper.

    Time went away (I've no other way to describe it). There was just the loop snaking up my leg. My mind was crystallized, there was no thought, no mundane awareness. Awareness of my body was gone.

    I did a perfect back flip, pulling my body up and away from the closing loop, landing on my shoulders, then tumbling back upright. The chopper took off cleaning jerking the log section away. I'd taken a few tumbling classes in jr high, but wasn't anywhere near the training necessary to what I'd done. The sense of purity and oneness such situations bring is highly addictive.

    Under pressure some crack, others look to the alpha members of the group to OK their actions. Some exit time and do what needs to be done. For the latter group no software is going to keep up.

    In the alternative, I watched a documentary on Vietnam, wherein a US officer said the lesson that stayed with him was never to send a man, where a bomb or a bullet can go. I think the effort is to follow the 5Ps (proper preparation prevents poor performance) and, as much as possible, plan for events such that protocol substitutes for heroics, and, in this guise software can reinforce protocol.


  • What if the entire purpose of this, or one advantage, is misinformation.

    For example, wants peaceful plane destroyed, with unfriendly person on it (unfriendly could be as simple as the non-ruling US political power, as complex as foreign national blocking plans of ruling caste of US). Pesky humans have emotions and feeling, and once they identify plane as peaceful, won't destroy it.

    Feed misleading information via console, plane is destroyed. Humans think they have "done the right thing". No lashback if d
  • Really, how can they patent this? My dad used to be an EW (electronics warfare technician) in the Navy. He used the SLQ-32, a machine that analyzed the radars used by ships, missiles, aircraft, etc. It helped an operator determine if a target was friendly or not.

    On submarines, they have numerous systems that help both sonar operators and FTGs (guys who target objects with torpedos) identify targets and find what are called firing solutions. They even had software to help verify other solutions.

    Even in co

  • Talk about biased "tests" (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Shadowlore ( 10860 ) on Sunday July 31, 2005 @10:37PM (#13211214) Journal
    From the link:
    In the simulation, team members had to protect an airbase and supply route which were under attack by enemy aircraft. The scenarios were configured with different patterns of attack and at different tempos. The situation was complicated because team members had to determine at first if the aircraft were neutral or hostile. Furthermore, two team members were dependent on the third whose role was to gather information and communicate it to them.

    So a three person team set up to be fully dependant on a single person. Hello? Any CS major with half a brain can tell you what will happen there. So could any decent sysadmin. Resource contention caused by a bottleneck. So their second "team" of agent assisted humans ... take a look at the illustration. It is one person and two (three actually) "agents".

    They basically made a very simple RTS. The they "discovered" that it is faster when your information distribution is faster. This is NOT "agent assist". And who didn't think that a computer program with direct data input, that doe snot need to move input devices, scan a screen and process would NOT be faster in disseminating simple information like that?

    This scenario is so far from reality in any situation that you cannot call it a simulation of reality. The conditions are far, far too simple and remove *any* intelligence from the "s3" and "s4" roles. If you are told to kill it, you do - and you get penalized heavily if you were told wrong information. This is important. It basically means that the role of "s3" is best suited for a computer. Combined with the inherent speed boost for information distribution and simple tests for the role of S2 this along will produce "better" results. Their S4 role is essentially less intelligent than "s3". "Move from A to B unless told to run away".

    On top of that, they set it up such that one unit was defending two different areas; one in motion.

    Ironically, the one area agents could in theory help out here is the one they specifically stated the human brain is better at; spatial reasoning. Go figure.

    What some of the other posters need to be aware of is that this scenario is not the same as in self defense or life-death sequences. So rants about that are basically off topic.

    One final interesting observation. They stated that at maximum speed no human team could destroy any target, but the computer .. oops I mean the HA teams could still destroy 36% of their targets. Seems to me that the limitations of the human body in move-click-process-move-click for the S2 role are a serious limiting factor they did not account for. Any RTS/FPS gamer will tell you these factors are not small. A better interface would have been a three key layout. Press I to identify, N for neutral, A for attack. Perhaps using the tab key to select from available targets. This would have improved the human performance merely by decluttering and improving their effective reaction times.

    Then to further eliminate inherent diferences that have nothing to do with agent and decision making, there should have been a delay incorporated into the agents to account for the remaining difference in UI effects. At least then it would have been interesting.

    Software agents may yet have a purpose in such condtions, but it won't be at this level, and this "study" doesn't demonstrate they would have any real value; it only demonstrates that you need battlefield intel to be disseminated quickly. Agents may have a use at a much higher level than was used in this experiment.

    I've done battlefield intelligence. We don't need agents to identify friend or foe. We need a fast, easy to grok at a glance view of assets, terrain, and intel.

    This is one reason that on the battlefield, attack units are assigned *directly* to intel units - so they can react and respond without waiting on information to filter up and down the chain.

    Military victories are nearly always based on who has the better intelligence and data. When you've got a superior method of information distribution, I'll be interested. When you just want to tell me that computers can do some things that are irrelvant to the application domain, it is a waste of time and resources.
  • But when the pressure increased, the human teams made errors who^H^H^Hwhich would have cost lives in real situations.

    Don't the editors proof read this stuff?

    One wonders if they are using some software agent to pick stories, and one that doesn't have a particularly good memory either.
  • I see the biggest possibility for this in the medical setting. Especially in emergency situations, even a whole team can forget about one extra aspect that should be kept in mind. The biggest advantage of systems like these could be to remind the team of necessary actions, but letting the system make decisions sounds way to risky to me. If they can get it to be a controlling system that evaluates your actions it sounds like it could help quite a bit.
  • Who's expecting to read about this in the RISKS digest in a couple years? imagine: "Soldiers were found to be simply relying on their software agents' interpretation of the situation when they initiated the fire sequence." There was an article about this recently, though I can't find it. The Patriot system said a plane was flying like a missle and the soldiers gave fire permission. They could have waited 1 minute but didn't. http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/23.72.html#subj2 [ncl.ac.uk]
  • And he cites Hungarian notation. Sigh.

    Time to dig out once again my copy of the original paper on Hungarian notation in which Simonyi clearly says it's designed to *not* be mnemonic, that it's better to have unintelligible variable names. In later revisionist papers, he backs off of that -- the notation itself is still it's good old unintelligible anti-mnemonic self, though.

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