Slashdot Mirror
Data-Sifting For Timely Intelligence Still an Elusive Goal
gyrogeerloose writes "Although there was evidence to suggest that the Japanese navy was up to something in December 1941, that information was scant and came too late. Today's intelligence agencies have another problem altogether — more information than they can deal with, and computers aren't helping as much as one might expect for reasons that will be familiar to Slashdot readers: computers can crunch numbers faster and more accurately than humans, but they're still easily baffled by language as it is commonly used in the real world. Metaphor, slang and simple figures of speech can confuse the best algorithm and, as quoted in the linked article in the San Diego Union-Tribune, 'A system that takes a week to discover a bombing that will occur in a day isn't very useful.'"
The data overload problem will only get worse in the future, which is why the next frontier in national security (and many other fields) may not be faster, smarter computers, but tapping into powers of the human mind that most modern people don’t even know exist (and deny dogmatically). I’m speaking of “psi” powers, which the CIA and other intelligence agencies have used extensively with some pretty amazing results. Read “Outside the Gates of Science: Why It's Time for the Paranormal to Come in from the Cold” by Damien Broderick for a fascinating account of this research. Remote viewers, for example, have been able to draw detailed pictures of secret bases, Saddam Hussein’s hideout, etc., but the techniques are erratic and don’t seem very amenable to scientific analysis. In general I wonder if the “Butlerian Jihad” of the Dune novels isn’t so far-fetched, and mental training schools like the Mentat and the Benne-Gesserit are the way forward for a civilization drowning in its own data.