ThePythonicCow
11th February 2011, 11:21
There is an interesting article at Thought police? DARPA wants to know how stories influence human mind, actions (NetWorkWorld.com, Layer 8) (http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/thought-police-darpa-wants-know-how-stories-i) that considers a DARPA Special Notice announcing a Workshop to be held February 28, 2011. The DARPA notice is entitled "Stories, Neuroscience and Experimental Technologies (STORyNET): Analysis and Decomposition of Narratives in Security Contexts" (https://www.fbo.gov/download/891/8911802f6cd71ad614ef78f84d38e0c6/DARPA-SN-11-20.pdf).
The NetWorkWorld article (first link above) provides some commentary on this, but the underlying DARPA notice (second link above) is fairly coherent in its own right, so I will quote the notice directly here.
This DARPA Notice states:
Stories exert a powerful influence on human thoughts and behavior. They consolidate memory, shape emotions, cue heuristics and biases in judgment, influence in-group/out-group distinctions, and may affect the fundamental contents of personal identity. It comes as no surprise that these influences make stories highly relevant to vexing security challenges such as radicalization, violent social mobilization, insurgency and terrorism, and conflict prevention and resolution. Therefore, understanding the role stories play in a security context is a matter of great import and some urgency.
Ascertaining exactly what function stories enact, and by what mechanisms they do so, is a necessity if we are to effectively analyze the security phenomena shaped by stories. Doing this in a scientifically respectable manner requires a working theory of narratives, an understanding of what role narratives play in security contexts, and examination of how to best analyze stories—decomposing them and their psychological impact systematically.
To encourage and stimulate discussion and research on these issues, the Defense Sciences Office (DSO) of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is hosting a workshop, Stories, Neuroscience and Experimental Technologies (STORyNET): Analysis and Decomposition of Narratives in Security Contexts. This workshop is intended as a precursor to exploring the neurobiological mechanisms which undergird narrative processing so as to establish fertile ground for connecting our understanding of the neuropsychology of stories with models, simulations and sensors salient to security concerns. To this end, the workshop will focus on surveying theories of narrative, understanding what role they play in security domains, and establishing the state of the art in story analysis and decomposition frameworks.
This STORyNET workshop has three goals:
To survey narrative theories. These empirically informed theories should tell us something about the nature of stories: what is a story? What are its moving parts? Is there a list of necessary and sufficient conditions it takes for a stimulus to be considered a story instead of something else? Does the structure and function of stories vary considerably across cultural contexts or is there a universal theory of story?
To better understand the role of narrative in security contexts. What role do stories play in influencing political violence and to what extent? What function do narratives serve in the process of political radicalization and how do they influence a person or group’s choice of means (such as violence) to achieve political ends? How do stories influence bystanders’ response to conflict? Is it possible to measure how attitudes salient to security issues are shaped by stories?
To survey the state of the art in narrative analysis and decomposition tools. How can we take stories and make them quantitatively analyzable in a rigorous, transparent and repeatable fashion? What analytic approaches or tools best establish a framework for the scientific study of the psychological and neurobiological impact of stories on people? Are particular approaches or tools better than others for understanding how stories propagate in a system so as to influence behavior?
This, in my view, provides a glance into the public view of the Artificial Intelligence computer work being done by the U.S. government, in order for computers to better understand language, stories and the flow of ideas in our society.
DARPA (http://www.darpa.mil/) is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. They organize and fund creative research at the leading edge of technology. As you can see from their website, another project (of many) involves a "100-Year Starship Study ... examining the business model needed to develop and mature technologies that would enable long-distance manned space flight a century from now."
Interesting stuff. No ET-based technology is visible here (not surprisingly.) But the earthling technology is proceeding along the lines we have been anticipating.
The NetWorkWorld article (first link above) provides some commentary on this, but the underlying DARPA notice (second link above) is fairly coherent in its own right, so I will quote the notice directly here.
This DARPA Notice states:
Stories exert a powerful influence on human thoughts and behavior. They consolidate memory, shape emotions, cue heuristics and biases in judgment, influence in-group/out-group distinctions, and may affect the fundamental contents of personal identity. It comes as no surprise that these influences make stories highly relevant to vexing security challenges such as radicalization, violent social mobilization, insurgency and terrorism, and conflict prevention and resolution. Therefore, understanding the role stories play in a security context is a matter of great import and some urgency.
Ascertaining exactly what function stories enact, and by what mechanisms they do so, is a necessity if we are to effectively analyze the security phenomena shaped by stories. Doing this in a scientifically respectable manner requires a working theory of narratives, an understanding of what role narratives play in security contexts, and examination of how to best analyze stories—decomposing them and their psychological impact systematically.
To encourage and stimulate discussion and research on these issues, the Defense Sciences Office (DSO) of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is hosting a workshop, Stories, Neuroscience and Experimental Technologies (STORyNET): Analysis and Decomposition of Narratives in Security Contexts. This workshop is intended as a precursor to exploring the neurobiological mechanisms which undergird narrative processing so as to establish fertile ground for connecting our understanding of the neuropsychology of stories with models, simulations and sensors salient to security concerns. To this end, the workshop will focus on surveying theories of narrative, understanding what role they play in security domains, and establishing the state of the art in story analysis and decomposition frameworks.
This STORyNET workshop has three goals:
To survey narrative theories. These empirically informed theories should tell us something about the nature of stories: what is a story? What are its moving parts? Is there a list of necessary and sufficient conditions it takes for a stimulus to be considered a story instead of something else? Does the structure and function of stories vary considerably across cultural contexts or is there a universal theory of story?
To better understand the role of narrative in security contexts. What role do stories play in influencing political violence and to what extent? What function do narratives serve in the process of political radicalization and how do they influence a person or group’s choice of means (such as violence) to achieve political ends? How do stories influence bystanders’ response to conflict? Is it possible to measure how attitudes salient to security issues are shaped by stories?
To survey the state of the art in narrative analysis and decomposition tools. How can we take stories and make them quantitatively analyzable in a rigorous, transparent and repeatable fashion? What analytic approaches or tools best establish a framework for the scientific study of the psychological and neurobiological impact of stories on people? Are particular approaches or tools better than others for understanding how stories propagate in a system so as to influence behavior?
This, in my view, provides a glance into the public view of the Artificial Intelligence computer work being done by the U.S. government, in order for computers to better understand language, stories and the flow of ideas in our society.
DARPA (http://www.darpa.mil/) is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. They organize and fund creative research at the leading edge of technology. As you can see from their website, another project (of many) involves a "100-Year Starship Study ... examining the business model needed to develop and mature technologies that would enable long-distance manned space flight a century from now."
Interesting stuff. No ET-based technology is visible here (not surprisingly.) But the earthling technology is proceeding along the lines we have been anticipating.