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DARPA's 'Social Puppet'
Roland Piquepaille writes "Videogame creators are heavily using software to animate objects or characters without reprogramming them between two scenes. Now, game designers from the University of Southern California (USC) have developed 'Social Puppet,' a computer engine to 'help soldiers learn unfamiliar languages by interacting with animated characters.' For this project, financed by DARPA, the researchers have used their expertise in previous videogames used by the armed forces, such as 'Tactical Iraqi.' But previous games were focused on teaching language and customs while Social Puppet is giving on-screen characters human non-verbal communication behaviors."
Finally, a real use for clippy!
"I noticed that you're having some problems with Farsi."
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
Why is the company that is at the forefront of intelligent vehicles collaborating with the U.S. army!?
Umm... the US Army is part of the Department of Defense , and DARPA stands for Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
great, now soldiers will learn crowd control and interacting with other cultures in the isolation of a computer.
i don't want to be too cynical, and i'm sure this is an interesting approach, but i still would prefer soldiers to get this kind of cultural briefing in a less synthetical environment. like spending a few days with people from the target culture, or even better, spending a few days in a country where such a culture persists.
verbal and non-verbal communication when controlling a (possibly violent) situation is hard enough with people understanding each others signals. when cultures clash that haven't met before (for the participants) this can be aggravated to utmost misunderstandings.
at least, this kind of thing is given some thought, instead of sending people around the world (who've never gotten out of their hometown before) without prior cultural briefings.
There's more to "interacting" than killing, raping, and torturing. I say it's about time soldiers learn that.
Well, our soldiers also passed out soccer balls in an effort to win hearts and minds. But seriously, this program is a useful tool for training to counter islamist insurgent battle tactics: the use of women and children as human shields, the fake surrender, the roadside bomb, and sniping from mosques.
an ill wind that blows no good
The screen shots have pictures of soldiers being greeted by men in villas and asking for food in local stores. Are the scenarios where the iraqis tell the soldiers to get bent? It sounds like software that would better be suited to showing kids how to handle an exhange trip to Europe.
As cool as it sounds, I doubt it has more use than a phrase book, other than it's a bit easier for people who can't be bothered to learn. At least they can take the book to a warzone (or do all soldiers have a laptop?). Nice tech. demo though.
"You know you don't act like a scientist, you're more like a game show host." Dana Barret
> while Social Puppet is giving on-screen characters human non-verbal communication behaviors
/. crowd? You know, something that teaches us how to act in social situations like bars and parties?
Can they release an expansion pack for the
And no, Leisure Suit Larry doesn't count.
-David
If you think that is bad, I heard DARPA created a special computer network for the military too. I think it was designed to survive a nuclear attack. After reading this article and the one about the computer network, I've really come to dislike DARPA. If you ask me, DARPA should not waste their time working on such projects for the military. They should stick to peaceful things like autonomous vehicles capable of traveling over the desert alone.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Good lord.
Two muppets walk into a bar. . .
Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est - Sir Francis Bacon
> Any group using force to project its terms is a terrorist group.
Indeed, that's why all World War 2 vets are actually terrorists. It doesn't matter if your enemy is the loathsome Nazis or headed by a self-proclaimed deity on earth (Imperial Japan) who invaded China and killed millions of Chinese. Imposing force is always terrorism. For that matter, when cops impose force on me after robbing a bank - they're terrorists. When will people learn that a big peace rally would've stopped the Nazis dead in their tracks?
I've heard stories of handing out candy to Iraqi children... then getting shot. It happened to my cousins platoon. They also got a suicide bomber while handing out soccer balls (the soccer ball one was real sad, one soldier actively handing them out died along with about a dozen civilians just trying to get a soccer ball). One of my good friends just got back without an eardrum, and the only stories I've heard from him are of roadside bombings and snipers. He had a few stories of detaining some people, but nothing he described sounded like anything I would call torture or abuse. From the handful of people I know that have gone to Iraq I've heard of two cases I could call abuse, no murders of civilians (besides those hit by suicide bombers) and no torture (but I also don't know anyone working/has worked as a prison guard or anything like that).
Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
Defend it from what exactly? Do you realize that something like 800 civilians are killed every month by these "proud defenders of Iraq", while civilian casualties inflicted by US troops sit at a small fraction of that?
"To save the villiage, we had to burn the villiage" comes to mind.
The only ones defending their homeland are the ING and the IP. The "freedom fighters" we hear so much about aren't fighting to protect their homeland, they're fighting to protect a regressive culture and their own power over others.