Anticipating future acts of creativity by our adversaries is very difficult. Yet, to avoid being blindsided by surprising new forms of WMD enabled by technology trends and scientific advances, DTRA must concern itself with exactly such future inventions. ATC-NY will develop the Archimedes system to give the DTRA an early heads up about anticipated technology, and scientific discoveries with potential for specific and novel danger, with the focus on surprising new forms of WMD, rather than incremental enhancements to existing weapons. Analysts (SMEs) will enter the characteristics of a technology trend into Archimedes, which will combine this with previously entered trends, and a general model of the WMD design space. Archimedes will then output summaries of the novel, dangerous combinations that these trends will enable, in a form that is suitable for further study. Archimedes analysis is automated and systematic, and does not require SMEs with multi-domain knowledge.
