The Human Information Appliance, the “Mesh” and the Future Production of

Intelligence

Dr. R.E. BurnettDepartment of Integrated Science & Technology

James Madison University

September 2004

A Psychology of Cyborg-Based Information Gathering & Intelligence Production

• Information Appliances - Jeff Raskin - Internal Apple

Computer memo 1978:

1. An information appliance is geared to support a specific activity, and to do so via the storage, reception, processing, and transmission of information.

2. Information appliances form an intercommunicating web. They can “talk” to each other.

3. Information appliances are transparent technologies, designed to be easy to use, and to fade into the background. They are poised to be taken for granted.

• I am applying the ideas of Donald Norman of MIT, Andy Clark of Indiana University and my own previous work in strategic and tactical information systems to the task of producing intelligence with an evolving human/machine interface

Implantable Computer Technology: The Human Intelligence Officer as an Information Appliance

• The intelligence cyborg must do what she/he has always done - but in a more effective manner with the same level of seamless human/technical integration - via implantation

• The cyborg soldier may be an exoskeleton-enabled human-Hummer…

• The HIA/IO will be an unremarkable diminutive entity of tissue and hardware - not so different in kind from his civilian cyborg counterpart

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The New DCI - Early CyborgText

The HIA/IO - DARPA- & The Private Sector

• DARPA will certainly seek to develop some military-specific implantable technologies - but they will benefit from an active private sector effort to develop similar technologies

• Civilian HIAs will develop alongside those to be utilized for intelligence operations

• Our culture will adopt such “cyborgs” as quite natural: we have been doing so for some time - and we are doing so now...

The Hallmarks of an Effective Information Appliance• Such an appliance will be “monitoring the world,

communicating with other such devices/individuals, and enabling us to manage, recognize, store, and compare information quite effortlessly in the business of the production of intelligence.”

• The appliance need not be overtly “conscious” in order to do the above tasks. Persons/organizations will be able to task various systems on-board to acquire desired information.

• An effective appliance will contribute nothing to the complexity of the tasks that they support: “the complexity of the appliance is that of the task, not the tool.”

• Over time - such human appliances will evolve to include a greater real-time integration of data/information

• virtual data modeling/computation will yield more robust probabilities of meaning to correspond with present and/or future actions

• In this sense - the human appliance will have the ability to both “see” and “model” a past-present-future event in tandem with decision-makers back at HQ.

• Intelligence at this level of evolution will become an effective multi-dimensional tool as the division of labor between the field and HQ blurs.

Example: An Evolving Prototype

• Some U.S. Special Forces are experimenting with the application of rapid information acquisition - transfer - and analysis to yield better real-time knowledge of tactical situations.

• A foot-soldier can gather information that can be more rapidly assessed to provide inference for immediate action - whether it be for more real-time intelligence analysis or for tactical action

• Rapid advances in computing and modeling will result in faster and more accurate assessments and actions

• So far this kind of modeling and analysis is conducted back at HQ

• Utilizing concepts such as multi-platform processing over wireless networks - the cyborg HIA will be able to co-process (with other cyborgs at HQ) data in the field that can be immediately used to re-task the individual for a variety of tactical missions

• Software and hardware tools will increasingly reside in the individual. The HIA will have the same cpu and data management/modeling capacities that reside on desktops at present

• We will begin to see a new information/intelligence model of rapid information acquisition and quantitative/qualitative analysis delivery - in which....

• ....the foot soldier/intelligence officer HIA is connected via multiple real-time information flows with the intelligence analyst HIA working at the Pentagon, Langley, Bolling, or Hoover.

• In a sense, we will have a single virtual analytical computer with shared processing and shared dynamic databases. These devices - HIAs - will become smarter on the fly....

The Human Appliance Integrated Into Libicki’s C4I Heuristic of the “Mesh” (System of Systems or the

Future Combat System)

• The Combat Mesh - a 24 hour dynamic information gathering system coupled to a smart-weapon delivery system can make a traditional invasion across recognized borders a suicidal mission. Targets will be immediately seen and destroyed, or sufficiently crippled to lower the threat to a such a level that the threat is effectively cancelled.

• This forms the heuristic of the battlespace

• The Diplomatic* Mesh - a 24 hour dynamic information gathering system coupled to a more technically sophisticated foreign policy system (e.g. CIA/DIA/State dept., etc). This evolving political/economic/social technology may provide competitive advantage to a State’s ability to influence other State’s behavior short of the onset of war.

• This forms the heuristic of the Diplomacy-Space

* Diplomacy - in contrast to combat - is equally amenable to the use of the human information appliance in terms of the operations of political and economic decisions and actions within the realm of foreign policy.

Combat as an Example of the Utility of the HIA

• Information and War

• Information has always been an important component in the conduct of war and other types of military engagements. Defining military engagement as seeking to destroy some array of an opponent’s assets (personnel, weaponry, industry, real estate, etc.), information then becomes a critical component in terms of strategy and especially tactics. Information provides knowledge about how to best conduct one’s activities towards the desired outcome of destroying an enemies’ assets.

The Use of HIAs Can Provide Us With More Robust Answers…

• Information toward the production of operational intelligence is a function of knowledge about…

• where is the opponent’s troops, their weaponry, their industry,

• what is the opponent’s troop level of capability in terms of firepower and training,

• who is the chief decision-maker that controls the movement and actions of the opponent’s troops,

• when will the opponent’s troops or weapons go into action, and

• why is the opponent motivated to conduct such hostilities and

• how can we influence their actions toward our desired outcome.

Summary

• The notion of the information appliance is a useful heuristic to describe the future of greater integrated human/machine production of intelligence

• The Human Information Appliance will result in space-time compression of data gathering, modeling, analysis, and probability-based decision-making

• Division of labor between the tactical environment and HQ will blur resulting in more dynamic decision-making

• The combination of the HIA with Libicki’s heuristic of the “Mesh” will yield new information-based technologies for both combat and diplomatic dimensions of foreign policy

Brief List of Sources

• Burnett - contract research in physical and biological information systems for defensive weapons heuristics - The Institute for Defense Analyses

• Clark - Natural Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence, 2003