US Department of Defense Is Building the MATRIX!

Everyone who watched the Matrix trilogy
was at least impressed by the complex
virtual reality developed by sentient
robots, if not by the many philosophical
elements. The concept of artificial
intelligence overthrowing or enslaving
mankind had previously been touched on
by hundreds of science fiction stories,
but this trilogy was a truly meaningful
depiction of the idea.

It seems that the US Department of
Defense is trying to build such a
matrix, an alternate reality holding a
complex matrix with billions of
individual “nodes” to reflect every man,
woman and child in the real world.

Called the Sentient World Simulation
(SWS), it will be a “synthetic mirror of
the real world with automated continuous
calibration with respect to current
real-world information”, according to a
concept paper for the project.

I am no conspiracy theory adept myself,
but this idea is kind of scary. No, they
won’t kidnap people and place them into
the virtual reality to harness their
electrical impulses, but the main
purpose sounds kind of fishy too.

“SWS provides an environment for testing
Psychological Operations (PSYOP),” the
paper reads, so that military leaders
can “develop and test multiple courses
of action to anticipate and shape
behaviors of adversaries, neutrals, and
partners”.

The applications don’t stop here, as
this virtual copy of our planet will
also include replicas of financial
institutions, utilities, media outlets
and street corner shops. All these will
be used to test various theories
regarding economics and human
psychology, to predict how individuals
and mobs will respond to various stressors.

“The idea is to generate alternative
futures with outcomes based on
interactions between multiple sides,”
said Purdue University professor Alok
Chaturvedi, co-author of the SWS concept
paper.

For now, Purdue’s labs for Synthetic
Environment for Analysis and
Simulations, or SEAS – the platform
underlying SWS say the applications are
used by corporations like pharmaceutical
giant Eli Lilly and defense contractor
Lockheed Martin to visualize the nodes
and scenarios in text boxes and graphs,
or as icons set against geographical maps.

There’s one thing that makes me think
the US government is really involved in
this “Matrix” and that is the fact that
Chaturvedi has received millions of
dollars in grants from the military and
the National Science Foundation to
develop SEAS.

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