Interesting report at DODBuzz.Com about U.S. military research and development in a number of areas, including “artificial” intelligence. Dr. John Parmentola, Director of Research and Laboratory Management with the Army’s science and technology office, talks about using an MMO as a Turing Test for AIs,
And if you do end up at the Army Science Conference next month, don’t be startled by the three-dimensional holographic image of a soldier talking to you (not that the regenerated arm, mind-controlled computer or implanted memories won’t freak you out enough) as you walk down the hall. It might just be the virtual human Army researchers are creating to make simulators and war games more realistic for training, Parmentola said.
They’re working on creating “photorealistic looking and acting human beings” that can think on their own, have emotions and talk in local slang.
“I actually interact with virtual humans in terms of asking them questions and they’re responding,” Parmentola said.
To test out the computer generated humans’ “humanity,” Parmentola and his researchers want to unleash some of their cyber Soldiers into so-called “massively multi-player online games” such as “World of Warcraft” or “Eve Online” – games frequented by thousands of super-competitive human players in teams of virtual characters fighting battles that can last for days.
“We want to use the massively multi-player online game as an experimental laboratory to see if they’re good enough to convince humans that they’re actually human,” he said.
So someday that 13 year old spamming “this is so fucking gay” in the WoW trade channel might turn out to be SkyNet.