SGT STAR, also known as Sgt. Star or Sergeant Star, was a chatbot operated by the United States Army to answer questions about recruitment. [1] [2]
After the September 11 attacks, traffic increased significantly to chatrooms on the U.S. Army's website, goarmy.com, increasing costs of staffing the live chatrooms. As a cost-cutting measure, the SGT STAR project was initiated as a partnership between the United States Army Accessions Command and Spectre AI, a wholly owned subsidiary of Next IT. Next IT, a Spokane, Washington-based company deploys "intelligent virtual assistants," using its software dubbed "ActiveAgent" which is a framework for functional presence engines.
Testing began in 2003, and SGT STAR launched to the public in 2006. [3] "STAR" is an acronym for "strong, trained and ready." [2] SGT STAR was launched as a chat interface on goarmy.com, but has since been developed as a mobile application, [2] as well as a life-size animated projection that has appeared live at public events. [4] SGT STAR can also interact with users on Facebook. [5]
In 2013, the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a Freedom of Information Act request to learn more about SGT STAR, including input and output patterns (questions and answers), usage statistics, contracts, and privacy policies. They received these records in April 2014, after coverage from various media outlets and a tongue-in-cheek campaign to "Free Sgt. Star." [1] [6] [7] [8]
A chatbot or chatterbot is a software application used to conduct an on-line chat conversation via text or text-to-speech, in lieu of providing direct contact with a live human agent.A chatbot is a type of software that can help customersby automating conversations and interact with them through messaging platforms. Designed to convincingly simulate the way a human would behave as a conversational partner, chatbot systems typically require continuous tuning and testing, and many in production remain unable to adequately converse, while none of them can pass the standard Turing test. The term "ChatterBot" was originally coined by Michael Mauldin in 1994 to describe these conversational programs.
The United States Army Special Forces, colloquially known as the "Green Berets" due to their distinctive service headgear, are a special operations force of the United States Army that are designed to deploy and execute nine doctrinal missions: unconventional warfare, foreign internal defense, direct action, counter-insurgency, special reconnaissance, counter-terrorism, information operations, counterproliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and security force assistance. The first two missions, unconventional warfare and foreign internal defenses, emphasize language, cultural, and training skills in working with foreign troops. Other Special Forces missions, known as secondary missions, include: combat search and rescue (CSAR), counter-narcotics, hostage rescue, humanitarian assistance, humanitarian demining, information operations, peacekeeping, and manhunts. Other components of the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) or other U.S. government activities may also specialize in these secondary missions. The Special Forces conduct these missions via seven geographically focused groups. Many of their operational techniques are classified, but some nonfiction works and doctrinal manuals are available.
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