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Using Games To Predict Terrorist Actions?
Thanks to Popular Science for its feature article discussing the opportunities for using game-based simulations to predict the actions of "allies, enemies and even terrorists." The article explains: "The need for sim Qaeda agents is taking modelers down strange paths. The team at Moves [creator of the America's Army recruiting game] is trying to model the behavior and thinking of terrorists by creating a series of computer characters to populate a model code-named Iago, after Shakespeare's arch villain." However, Will Wright, creator of The Sims, injects a note of caution with regard to the general concept, pointing out: "As you scale up to larger and larger systems, you can probably model large trends... But what the Iraqi resistance will do over the next month is based on thousands of tiny local factors that seem to always be in flux and to be too granular to be modeled."
You trolls aren't even trying any more.
They always seem to leave out one factor in the Iraqi resistance, the arrogance of the US president (among others in the gov). Simulate that and the model will work better.
Guess it is easier to build something based on a single "bad guy" leading a group than admit the opposition is actually thousands of people making individual choices to fight back.