Herself’s Artificial Intelligence

Some UA Huntsville researchers who specialize in statistics are finding patterns in asymmetric threats to the US and US troops. While these attacks seem random some patterns are emerging.

While these patterns do not give specific information as to what will be attacked, when and how, it does give probabilities of likely targets, types of attacks and time frames. Greater resources can then be applied to those areas over that time frame.

But the question is; is there really a pattern? We humans can find patterns in almost any sufficiently large database of information. It is also well known any well published attack will attract copy cats.

If it turns out that there are patterns to these attacks what’s to stop the terrorists from using a random number generator to plan future attacks?

Since the Sept. 11 attacks we’ve had several lists of cities likely to be hit by terrorists. Not of which has been attacked. And we’ve had several predictions of types of terrorist attacks to come. So far all they have predicted is what else will need to be dismantled before you can board a plane.

If we hope to anticipate terrorism perhaps we need to look at something besides statistics and predictive markets?

More information:
Computer Models to Provide Better Intelligence for Army
RAND Tries to Model Risks of Terrorist Attacks
The statistics of fear
Eigenbehaviors
Prediction Markets are hot but here’s why they can be so wrong