Pre-Crime Magic 8 Ball Uses “Resentment” in Spoken and Written Information to Identify “The Terrorists”
September 29th, 2010I like Tony’s commentary on this over at Technofascism Blog. He offers a couple of quotes from 1984:
“It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself–anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face…; was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime…”
-George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 5
“Your worst enemy, he reflected, was your nervous system. At any moment the tension inside you was liable to translate itself into some visible symptom.”
– George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 6
Via: Buffalo News:
Imagine using the same technology to locate a lone bomber before he carries out his terrorist act and to identify a troubled veteran or first responder ground down by tragedies and violence.
Stop imagining.
Some 120 local first responders from law enforcement and other agencies, the military and mental health professionals gathered Friday to hear firsthand about an advanced computer program that can accomplish those two seemingly different tasks.
The presentation was part of the International First Responder-Military Symposium held at Hilbert College in the Town of Hamburg.
A Swiss professor working with a Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientist who heads the Mind Machine Project there outlined how this program operates through computerized scanning of phone calls and electronic messages sent through e-mail and social networking mechanisms.
“Suppose you know there’s a threat to the president when he is visiting, say, Texas. Through information obtained by the National Security Agency, we have the tools to go through huge quantities of data obtained from that area,” said professor Mathieu Guidere of the University of Geneva.
How? “The computer system detects resentment in conversations through measurements in decibels and other voice biometrics,” he said. “It detects obsessiveness with the individual going back to the same topic over and over, measuring crescendos.”
As for written transmissions scrutinized by the computer program, it can detect the same patterns of fixation on specified subjects, said Guidere, who has worked for years screening mass data that involves radicalization and ideological indoctrination.
Using character traits that have been identified through psychological profiles conducted on lone bombers following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Guidere said he and his colleagues developed programs that isolate signs pointing to a potential terrorist.
He said lone bombers, in particular, are not mentally deranged but harbor hatred and deep resentment toward government. Their emotional spikes, Guidere explained, can be identified by the computer program.
The practical side is that once the individual has been identified, the information can be passed along to authorities so surveillance can begin, he said.
Currently, the computer program can review 10,000 voice or other electronic transmissions in an hour. The goal, the professor said, is to increase the capacity to 100,000 per hour.
On the civilian side, the program can be used by psychologists and other mental health providers working with war veterans, law enforcement officials and others to measure their progress in recovery.
“By recording the voice of the patient, the program can rate negativity and positivity with depression and other emotional disorders,” said Guidere, who is working with Dr. Newton Howard, director of MIT’s Mind Machine Project.
Related: The Last Roundup: MAIN CORE
from: http://mmp.cba.mit.edu/ (if this is related)
Building intelligent machines
The work of MMP spans four intellectual generations, revisiting fundamental assumptions about the nature of the brain, cognition, computing, and intelligence. The project is based on the belief that, by bringing together current advances in each of these areas with insights from their roots, it will be possible to fulfill the early vision that lies at their intersection.
Mind (models for thought), Memory (accumulating and using experience), Body (scalable substrates to embody intelligence), and Brain/Intent (looking for advanced applications of these technologies, such as “non-chemical based” solutions for psychiatric treatments and brain prostheses).
erm, what?! brain prostheses?
Okay. Sure. I’ve turned off the TV, and now I have to stop writing comments on Cryptogon lest I set buzzers off on this totally imperfect, juvenile attempt to predict terrorism?
When are these nuts going to give up their quest to control humans? They can’t. Never will. Shills to the credo of control, all of them. Nuts. Too much learning in my bones to know this is doomed from the get go.
Humans are a species of mammal. They have emotions. Some have less awareness of what they are all about then others.
I worry more about the people that DON’t have any RESENTMENT in their being than I do of others who act out but aren’t articulate.
Sounds like another numb nut theory from the Jarhead clan: all people who are capable of expressing resentment are criminals.
Gawd are these freaks ever going to give up their incessant desire for control.
What a sorry ass sack of shit this terrorism freak show has become.
Meant to say some act out believing they don’t do some resenment versus others who just act out with anger in general and aren’t aware that they are even angry! Takes all kinds to make the world go round.
Wait until they apply this system to our military and law enforcement personnel, Homeland Security, TSA, etc. and find out that they are the most resentful and dangerous of all