You’ve probably seen a movie or two in which the hook was using artificial intelligence (AI) to collate data on mass human behavior and predict how populations and even governments will react to various threats, etc. You’d have to be a special kind of stupid if you didn’t think the US government has already been trying to do this.
Ever played Sim City, or something else from that game franchise? Lots of game engines are based on the very same kind of thinking, though typically at a simplified level. They create a virtual world, a simulation of reality but without all the expense and resource use. You play those kinds of games and after awhile you find the unrealistic responses in the game, but you understand what will happen when you take this or that track. Try playing a game where the AI engine attempts to account for some of the most intimate details of every stinking person on the planet. And then, the AI noting how all of that fits together in an accurate portrayal of how whole nations actually respond to changes in reality, and also changes in mere perception of reality.
What if all the Snowden revelations about NSA point to the that very thing? It’s a long read, but I suspect George Washington’s Blog might be onto something here. This is better than something I might have written for today.
