Darpa to Troubled Soldiers: Meet Your New Simulated Therapist

Darpa to Troubled Soldiers: Meet Your New Simulated Therapist

www.wired.com

The Pentagon hasn’t made much progress in solving the PTSD crisis plaguing this generation of soldiers. Now it’s adding new staff members to the therapy teams tasked with spotting the signs of emotional pain and providing therapy to the beleaguered. Only this isn’t a typical hiring boost. The new therapists, Danger Room has learned, will be computer-generated “virtual humans” programmed to appear empathetic.

If a soldier talking to the SIM exhibits minor symptoms, the Sensei might help him or

(visit the link for the full news article)

Military brass have become increasingly willing to try just about anything, from yoga and reiki to memory-adjustment pills, that holds an iota of promise.

Ya everything except ending the wars

Artificial empathy by a SIM charcater?
Really?

I understand that they can escalate meeting with therapists but other than that this is pretty crazy.

Seems like a crazy future we have ahead of us where technology is used as band-aid for emotional pain.

www.wired.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Seems a little cool and a little not at the same time.. Hopefully it wont be used to track soldiers with ptsd, so that they can "deal" with them later. I know, not everything is a conspiracy, just saying. But if it works, good.

Gs

reply to post by ModernAcademia

Hi mod,
Yes it is totally sad.
And you know who will catch the flack. THE poor fighting man.
Like the wacked out war weary Vietnam vets or the WW2 shell shocked guys.
When soldiers are war weary enough to commit things like the

My Lai Massacre - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_Massacre - Similarto My Lai Massacre - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The My Lai Massacre 1] was the Vietnam War mass murder of between 347 and 504 unarmed civilians in South Vietnam on March 16, 1968, by United States
OR THIS

BBC News - Afghan massacre: Kandahar families given compensation
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17503733

Mar 25, 2012 ... The families of Afghan civilians allegedly killed in a shooting spree by a US soldier are given compensation from the US military.

en.wikipedia.org...www.bbc.co.uk...

AND the BEST UNCLE SAM can do for them is give them theropy from a phone menue
type computer screen. Nixon was the last one to stop there insane warmongers.
Look what happened to him??
the best ljb

looks interesting, no doubt this tech will be used to build up a large database of psychological responses from soldiers and may even result in secrets spilling out. reminds of that virtual pop-model from Deus Ex-2

Originally posted by longjohnbritches
Hi mod,
Yes it is totally sad.
And you know who will catch the flack. THE poor fighting man.
Like the wacked out war weary Vietnam vets or the WW2 shell shocked guys.
When soldiers are war weary enough to commit things like the

Yep

I can easily imagine a soldier having issues, getting mad at having to talk to a computerized therapist and punches the monitor screen with his fist and then ends up being even more angry

You can't help them by automating the therapeutic process, that's not only the last thing to do, it's not even on the list

reply to post by ModernAcademia


This is sad. Just how much can a "Suri" accomplish with a real soul?

Over the holidays, I had litle fun with some freinds, and the IPhone "Suri'.

In asking for the weather in a particular city, Suri kept responding- I am unable to
locate -. Eventually we decided to tell Suri she was stupid.

Her response was - I am just trying to help you -

To which we said - Your just programmed to say that -

To which she said - You are certainly entitled to your opinion -

We laughed, however in this situation, its far from funny.

reply to post by ModernAcademia


This is retarded. The only thing that helps PTSD is talking to the people that were there when you experienced the trauma, with some guidance by a good therapist. Unfortunately there aren't many good therapists, people getting into psychology tend to look down on patients because they think they know what makes them tick.

I think PTSD is caused basically because after a traumatic ordeal the IDEA that you are ok and alive is slow to catch up with the FACT you are ok and alive. Everything happens so fast in intense situations that you can't unscramble those details and you have all these what if questions. You need to be able to try to sort those out, but when you are living in long periods of traumatic stress it might take a really long time for the idea to catch up with the fact.

What a joke.

Yaaa lets sit these hardened war vets who have seen and done awful things in front of a computer screen and have them talk to an animated person who "appears" to be empathetic. Its insulting and essentially insinuates to these soldiers that they are children with childish minds that cant differentiate between fact and fiction .

"Simulated therapy?"...

how telling about how much the establishment is inclined to compensate those who risk life, limb, and sanity for their military enterprises....

how telling about the 'value' of the soldier once 'damaged'...

how... cost effective....

(is there any doubt they still project the notion that these afflictions are "purely opportunistic fantasy")

reply to post by ModernAcademia

I wonder if this guy shows up on the screen.

www.fanpop.com...=s=h/photoe/filter/freedman_mash_shrink+sidney?sort...

just for a little levity in a REAL BAD situation
ljb

reply to post by longjohnbritches


Please read this to the very end
Thanks ljb

The Soldier's Commitment - honoring their word to their country and each other
by Gary Groman aka The Ole Seagull
published: Jan 22, 2006
When the framers of our nations Declaration of Independence made their commitment to its principles they said, "And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor." Yet even as they signed their names, it was the commitment of Soldiers at places like Lexington, Concord, Ticonderoga, and Bunker Hill that breathed the very meaning into its words and provided the hope of realizing its promise.



From Valley Forge to Yorktown, it was the commitment of its Soldiers that won America its freedom and from Yorktown to Iraq it has been the commitment of her Soldiers that has preserved that freedom. Without that commitment, the Declaration of Independence would have been just another piece of paper, America would not have come into existence, long endured, or have had any hope for a peaceful and successful future.



It is a sad fact of life that the politicians, and those in power, start wars and that it is the Soldiers, their families, and the people of the nations they represent who bleed, die, suffer, and otherwise pay the price of war. It's an amazing thing that a nation can send its sons and daughters off to bleed and die in a war even while it debates whether or not it should have gotten into that war in the first place and how long it will stay in it. What a strange dichotomy; the very freedoms that our Soldiers are fighting for end up providing aide and comfort to the very enemy they are fighting.

Remember in"THX1138" when Robert Duval goes into a booth because he was troubled?That is what I thought of when I saw this.

Originally posted by cavtrooper7
Remember in"THX1138" when Robert Duval goes into a booth because he was troubled?That is what I thought of when I saw this.

That was the first thing I thought of!

The idea that people would accept this as 'therapeutic contact' with another person troubles me.

Sure hope this AI shows more simpathy than "CleverBot". I think the real solution is to stop all these proxy wars... The things these solders have to endure would break most of us.

Is the US military really so strapped for cash that it cant afford to pay therapists anymore? There are a few areas where costcutting could be considered, but the mental health of it's most important resource; us, should not be one of them.

Still, recruits are in plentiful supply thanks to Call Of Duty, and so preserving what they have isn't so important at this point as it should be.

Originally posted by GogoVicMorrow
reply to post by ModernAcademia

 

This is retarded. The only thing that helps PTSD is talking to the people that were there when you experienced the trauma, with some guidance by a good therapist. Unfortunately there aren't many good therapists, people getting into psychology tend to look down on patients because they think they know what makes them tick.

I think PTSD is caused basically because after a traumatic ordeal the IDEA that you are ok and alive is slow to catch up with the FACT you are ok and alive. Everything happens so fast in intense situations that you can't unscramble those details and you have all these what if questions. You need to be able to try to sort those out, but when you are living in long periods of traumatic stress it might take a really long time for the idea to catch up with the fact.

It is mostly about the ones that are on the Wall.
You gotta go all the way there and pretend you are talking to them.
I am glad for you that you don't get this.

Greaaaaaaat

Another gadget to pull us farther away as a society from being able to effectively communicate face to face......

Its already horrid as it is, i watch my nieces all day long on their phones texting......they absolutely CANNOT function in social situations, because they do not know how to "interface" with a live human being infront of them.......

This is getting out of hand........and is a dangerous road........we are already taking the humanity out of dealing with other human beings.....pretty soon there will be nothing left...........

And the utter disregard for other people, lives, feelings, what makes us HUMAN will be lost completely

Originally posted by Lazyninja
Is the US military really so strapped for cash that it cant afford to pay therapists anymore? There are a few areas where costcutting could be considered, but the mental health of it's most important resource; us, should not be one of them.

Still, recruits are in plentiful supply thanks to Call Of Duty, and so preserving what they have isn't so important at this point as it should be.

Governments since there were any could give a rats ass about returning vetrans.
Yeah a couple walls and some TOTALLY screwed up graves in a d.c. mall or cemetary for Americans. The valiant soldier does the dirty work and the ones that send them out on thier way sit back and listen to the ca ching.
What will they discrace the modern vets with. Oh well at least they get decent pay checks these days. Can't they afford a private shrink??

reply to post by longjohnbritches


I don't think I get what you mean? What do you mean about on the wall and glad that I don't get what?
Sorry for misunderstanding, maybe I am just reading it weird.