2008-current

Please see the CAGE page for a more recent summary!

Currently, I am working at the Laboratory for Computational Cultural Dynamics (LCCD) under Professor V.S. Subrahmanian. As the title of the laboratory implies, we deal with developing the theory and tools to deal with decision making in cultural situations/problems.

I am creating a fully interactive, real-time 3d game with a storyline based on SOMA rules. The SOMA, or Stochastic Opponent Modeling Agents, project expresses rules about the probability that a certain person or group will execute a certain action based on a given world state. SOMA retrieves information from a variety of sources (OASYS, TREX) and determines these probabilities based on a set of algorithms.

This game, when completed, will be aimed primarily at intelligence analysts looking to answer questions regarding potential future actions to be taken in the Middle East. A sample question answered interactively by the game would be along the lines of, "Will the Hezb-e Islami (a terrorist group) begin to attack civilians if President Karzai takes [action 1], [action 2], [not action 3], . . ." The game will predict how the opponent, in this case Hezb-e Islami, will most likely respond if the first action is taken. The game state will change, the user will select another action to take, the game will play the opponent's hand according to its SOMA predictions, and the cycle will continue.

Putting this into perspective with other projects developed by the LCCD, this game serves as the interface between the cloud of data collected and analyzed by SOMA/OASYS/TREX and the end user, in this case intelligence analysts. This position is illustrated in the graphic below.

Image created by V.S. Subrahmanian

Please see the CAGE page for a more recent summary!