Q&A: DNI Chief Scientist Eric Haseltine
There has been some progress made in this area, like at NSA. Their Knowledge Discovery Group has worked on what they call intelligence value estimation–trying to get computers to have deep semantic understanding of what's inside a document. It's almost as if a human were looking at it and said, "What does this thing really mean, and does it matter for this particular query?" That's where some of the "out there" research is going.
What about the growing use of wikis and blogs in the intelligence community? These seem like tailor-made tools.
We are using wikis, we are using blogs, we are using chat, we're using instant messaging, we're using VTC [video teleconferencing]. … But our problem is vastly more complicated than anyone else's, so we have to be very creative in coming up with better stuff and not following but leading.
These are not characteristics I associate with a $40 billion bureaucracy. How's the reception you're getting? Are people listening?
I have gotten nothing but magnificent support from top to bottom (at DNI) for the kinds of turbulence I've been creating. I think that's a very salient example of what's different about DNI and what our value-added is–that we are not wedded to the old way. We're held accountable for reforming the place, which means breaking some eggs. However, we don't want to irritate people just to do it. We pick our battles carefully.
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