A Purdue University professor is helping the DoD predict what happens in case of tsunami, anarchy or war (via Reddit):

The DOD is developing a parallel to Planet Earth, with billions of individual “nodes” to reflect every man, woman, and child this side of the dividing line between reality and AR.

Called the Sentient World Simulation (SWS), it will be a “synthetic mirror of the real world… an environment for testing Psychological Operations (PSYOP)”… so that military leaders can “develop and test multiple courses of action to anticipate and shape behaviors of adversaries, neutrals, and partners”…

Yank a country’s water supply. Stage a military coup. SWS will tell you what happens next… Purdue University professor Alok Chaturvedi [is] co-author of the SWS concept paper. [Link]

You get the feeling that Prof. Chaturvedi’s favorite song might be ‘What’s On Your Mind‘ by Information Society:

Right now, the 62 simulated nations in SEAS depict humans as composites, at a 100-to-1 ratio. One organisation has achieved a one-to-one level of granularity for its simulations, according to Chaturvedi: the US Army, which is using SEAS to identify potential recruits. Chaturvedi insists his goal for SWS is to have a depersonalised likeness for each individual, rather than an immediately identifiable duplicate. [Link]