Future of Health IT: Trends and Scenarios

Military Hoping Chat Bots Will Replace Deployed Parents -- Videoconferencing -- InformationWeek

The saddest new high-tech idea I've seen so far this year, via ACM's TechNews service, is this story in Information Week: Military Hoping Chat Bots Will Replace Deployed Parents.

The U.S. Department of Defense is looking to develop virtual parents to comfort children when moms and dads on active duty aren't available to talk. In a solicitation for proposals posted on the department's Small Business Innovation Research Web site, the military says it's seeking to "develop a highly interactive PC- or Web-based application to allow family members to verbally interact with 'virtual' renditions of deployed Service Members."

"The child should be able to have a simulated conversation with a parent about generic, everyday topics," the solicitation says. "For instance, a child may get a response from saying, 'I love you,' or 'I miss you,' or 'Good night mommy/daddy.'

This is a technologically challenging application because it relies on the ability to have convincing voice-recognition, artificial intelligence, and the ability to easily and inexpensively develop a customized application tailored to a specific parent."

While Skype or similar technologies might seem like a more cost-effective and immediately available solution, Defense rejects that possibility, noting in a Q&A posted below the solicitation that the purpose of the project is to help children cope with the absence of a parent when Internet and phone communication are not an option.

I'm not saying this is a bad idea. Anything that can comfort a child when his or her parent can't is, in my book, a good thing, especially when the child may be aware that mom or dad is in a dangerous and scary place.

What makes me sad is the realization that the obvious next step for this technology is for situations where the parent is really and truly unable to talk, now or ever, by any means whatsoever. In wartime it's not uncommon for soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen/women to die. Once it exists, this chat bot is a logical solution when a real human known to and trusted by the child is unavailable to provide comfort and solace.

I'm not saying that this is a bad idea either. I'm just sad to think that such a technology may be needed, especially in light of our government's recent penchant for pre-emptive warmaking with flimsy justification. Hopefully we'll be finding our way toward the moral high ground in the future, and those who must make the ultimate sacrifice for our country will be doing so in a higher and more just cause. Even in the current circumstance, the men and women of our military have my deepest respect, admiration, and support, and I salute them. It's the leadership who is to blame.

However sad the context, the fruits of this project will be a salutary application of agent-oriented architecture. It will, if successful, have many applications in healthcare, within and outside of the military context.

Storytron: an Interactive Storytelling Engine

The October Dr. Dobbs Journal has an interview in which Editor-At-Large Mike Swain talks with Chris Crawford, one of the early Atari game development gurus, about the interactive storytelling paradigm, of which Crawford is the inventor. It gives an exciting glimpse into the possibilities for the future of computer games, and I believe games will play a huge role in the future of healthcare - indispensable for training staff and patients and highly varied in their therapeutic applications as well.

Enterprise Grid Computing Solutions

Recently I realized I had got a bit fuzzy on the difference between clustered computing and grid computing.  I found a good explanation at a page entitled Enterprise Grid Computing Solutions. According to them, my conflation of the two is not unusual. Here's how the folks at Avarsys (http://www.avarsys.com) clarify the similarities and differences with a good example, along with another from Matt Michie at the HiveArchive.

eWeek: Java's Momentum Is Running Low

eWeek published an opinion column yesterday by Larry Seltzer, with the headline Java's Momentum Is Running Low. Here's a taste:

Many lawsuits and real-world trials later, Java is still a major platform for server-side application development, but only one of many and no longer the one with momentum. Heavily influenced by Java, Microsoft's .NET has more mind share where it counts.

On the client, I can no longer say that Java is in freefall because it's closer to rock bottom. As a client application development platform it's far behind a wave of interpreted languages like Ruby and Python. Yes, there are still a few oddball Java applets out there, but you rarely hear about innovative new programs being built in it.

Java dead? Sometimes I think it's true. Then I stop thinking.

How Agent Architectures Work

A bit more on agent architectures, which I discussed about a week or two ago in a post called Agent Architectures - A New Paradigm for Software Engineering?.  Novo Innovations seems to be out there minting serious coin using an agent architecture, but they're also talking about patents and whatnot, so it's reasonable to assume they're not about to donate their IP to the greater good yet.

Meanwhile, some academicians are proposing an architecture that could make agents commonplace. Agent Architectures for the Rest of Us? My slogan, not theirs, but appropriate nonetheless.