XPost: comp.ai, comp.ai.games, comp.ai.alife   
   From: silvert@gmail.com   
      
   I am always sceptical when someone writes that a system is too complex   
   to be understood/modelled/simulated. In the case of terrorism, although   
   there are many aspects to it that can lead to lots of detailed   
   analysis, some pretty straightforward patterns have long been evident   
   as reflected by the US intelligence report that has just been released.   
   One is that if you treat people disrespectfully (if you "diss" them in   
   the language of the ghetto) they respond with hostility and are likely   
   to fight back. That the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq would   
   generate retribution was predicted by many and is now clear to all (or   
   almost all, excluding some senior politicians). Although some aspects   
   of the current "war on terror" are indeed complex and difficult to   
   comprehend, many of the basic underlying principles are clear and   
   easily understood and simulated.   
      
   The role of rational analysis in this case is not so much to tell us   
   something new - much of what we are likely to learn from AI is already   
   clear to scholars in the field - but to serve as an antidote to   
   policies based on wishful thinking. Unfortunately global policy is   
   currently based on a very simple model, that force and intimidation can   
   defeat any enemy. This model is wrong, and any alternate model that is   
   more realistic, even if it is very simple, is of potential value.   
      
   Harris wrote:   
      
   > Finally, human conflicts have been proven to be "complex" models in   
   > the mathematical term. In practice, this means that we can say little   
   > and do even less when it comes to "scaling" them down to a   
   > controllable system (in the input-output or state-space sense of   
   > Control Theory) or a dynamic bargaining system (in the non-zerosum,   
   > symmetric or asymmetric, gaming scheme in the sense of Utility   
   > Theory). Pretty 3D graphical simulations make things much more   
   > appealing, but they do not solve the real problems at hand.   
      
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