Raytheon BBN to explore the cause of conflict using artificial intelligence

Homeland December 11, 2017

Raytheon BBN Technologies is putting artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques to the test so that military personnel might better understand how cultural impacts and other factors combine to cause conflict.

To do so, Raytheon BBN will make canny use of its machine reading system – a computer programme able to read and parse prose into a language intelligible to an artificial intelligence.

This system will analyse the “causal factors behind events and the relationships between them” to give a fuller picture of the contributing factors.

These factors and relationships will be illustrated in digestible semantic graphs, which will present the findings in a way understandable to both computers and human beings.

This, together with additional methods of modelling and visualisation, may well give military planners the perspective necessary to foresee the potential implications of any given action.

According to David Lintz, Vice President of Raytheon BBN Technologies: “Using artificial intelligence, we can potentially understand what causes conflict. When military planners understand the root causes, they may be better able to recommend the best course of action for any given situation.”

The contract is being carried out under an award from the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Causal Exploration of Complex Operational Environments programme.

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artificial intelligence Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency Raytheon BBN Technologies