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posted by CoolHand on Monday October 08 2018, @05:20PM   Printer-friendly
from the Open-the-pod-bay-doors-HAL dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Artificial intelligence in space exploration is gathering momentum. Over the coming years, new missions look likely to be turbo-charged by AI as we voyage to comets, moons, and planets and explore the possibilities of mining asteroids.

AI is already a game-changer that has made scientific research and exploration much more efficient. We are not just talking about a doubling but about a multiple of ten, Leopold Summerer, Head of the Advanced Concepts and Studies Office at ESA, said in an interview with Singularity Hub.

The history of AI and space exploration is older than many probably think. It has already played a significant role in research into our planet, the solar system, and the universe. As computer systems and software have developed, so have AI's potential use cases.

The Earth Observer 1 (EO-1) satellite is a good example. Since its launch in the early 2000s, its onboard AI systems helped optimize analysis of and response to natural occurrences, like floods and volcanic eruptions. In some cases, the AI was able to tell EO-1 to start capturing images before the ground crew were even aware that the occurrence had taken place.

Other satellite and astronomy examples abound. Sky Image Cataloging and Analysis Tool (SKICAT) has assisted with the classification of objects discovered during the second Palomar Sky Survey, classifying thousands more objects caught in low resolution than a human would be able to. Similar AI systems have helped astronomers to identify 56 new possible gravitational lenses that play a crucial role in connection with research into dark matter.

[...] As is often the case with exponential technologies, there is a great potential for synergies and convergence. For example with AI and robotics, or quantum computing and machine learning. Why not send an AI-driven robot to Mars and use it as a telepresence for scientists on Earth? It could be argued that we are already in the early stages of doing just that by using VR and AR systems that take data from the Mars rovers and create a virtual landscape scientists can walk around in and make decisions on what the rovers should explore next.

One of the biggest benefits of AI in space exploration may not have that much to do with its actual functions. Chew believes that within as little as ten years, we could see the first mining of asteroids in the Kuiper Belt with the help of AI.

I think one of the things that AI does to space exploration is that it opens up a whole range of new possible industries and services that have a more immediate effect on the lives of people on Earth, he said. "It becomes a relatable industry that has a real effect on people's daily lives. In a way, space exploration becomes part of people's mindset, and the border between our planet and the solar system becomes less important."


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  • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday October 08 2018, @05:48PM (5 children)

    by Immerman (3985) on Monday October 08 2018, @05:48PM (#746040)

    Yes, AI has been around for a few decades now, what's your point? So have internal combustion engines, and frankly AI is improving considerably faster.

    The AI isn't about parametric optimization - it's about the *techniques used* to perform that optimization. Whether it's a genetic algorithm or a neural network heuristic engine, AI allows the optimization to be performed without direct human input - arriving at heavily optimized intelligent solutions with a minimum of input by human analysis (a.k.a. natural intelligence). Which incidentally also avoids many human biases and assumptions unless explicitly coded into the behavior of the simulation that evaluates solutions - genetic algorithms for example often arrive at very counterintuitive solutions that human engineers may well have never considered, and that dramatically outperform the best human designs.

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  • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Tuesday October 09 2018, @01:49AM (4 children)

    by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 09 2018, @01:49AM (#746241) Journal

    Yes, AI has been around for a few decades now

    Your post seems to confuse AI with algorithms written by people with Intelligence. AI, which by definition would require intelligence, doesn't yet exist. "AI" falsely so-called is pretty common (This toaster has a sensor and uses AI to make perfect toast! -- Chat with blabberbot, our new AI! --Facebook's AI can identify your photos sometimes! -- etc.).

    Better automation tools designed by humans and algorithm design by humans that reduces the amount of human input are not a separate intelligence. If I put gooey paste in the oven and out comes a cake, that does not make my oven intelligent. If I drop a rock and it decides to fall instead of my having to carefully carry it down a cliff face, that does not make the rock intelligent. Let's not move the goalpoasts--nifty subroutines and prescribed behavior (including emergent behavior arising from human-designed systems) aren't intelligence.

    I look forward to AI. Perhaps it will arise within my lifetime. TFS and its "AI" link gush about AI this, AI that, without mentioning a single instance of intelligence that isn't human. That isn't how intelligence works.

    • (Score: 2) by legont on Tuesday October 09 2018, @02:04AM

      by legont (4179) on Tuesday October 09 2018, @02:04AM (#746249)

      I does beat NSA - National Stupidity Agency - already though.

      --
      "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
    • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday October 09 2018, @03:35AM (2 children)

      by Immerman (3985) on Tuesday October 09 2018, @03:35AM (#746271)

      It comes down to how exactly you define "intelligence" - a topic of much debate. I would assert that it's something separate from consciousness, or even awareness, and perhaps not dependent upon them. Natural evolution comes up with very creative, intelligent designs, despite having no consciousness whatsoever. Should we judge its engineering intelligence on its innate properties, by which lights it's nothing more than imperfect self-replication, competition, and time? Or by its results, which exceed by far anything yet created by the mind of Man in both intricacy, and often, efficiency?

      If intelligence is an innate property of a "being" then no, we (probably*) have not created a "true" artificial intelligence. But if intelligence is a property instead of the *results* of that "being", then I think we succeeded in creating such long ago, and now the field is largely focused on how to extend and leverage problem-solving machines to perform ever-more-challenging tasks that had previously required the application of intelligent human minds. They're artificial, and they generate intelligent results. A.I. They may be incredibly myopic and lack any shred of common sense, but you can probably think of at least a few people you could say that about. :-D

      * I say probably not, because neural networks especially are designed to, very crudely, mimic the mechanisms in the human brain, and we really have very little understanding of how our most advanced ones set about decomposing and resolving any particular task they're trained to. We *probably* haven't captured the "secret sauce" that lets true awareness emerge, but we *definitely* don't know what that "secret sauce" is yet, so I'm don't see how anyone can honestly claim that we *definitely* haven't captured it.

      • (Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday October 09 2018, @11:29AM (1 child)

        by PiMuNu (3823) on Tuesday October 09 2018, @11:29AM (#746379)

        > which exceed by far anything yet created by the mind of Man in both intricacy, and often, efficiency?

        If I throw a rock off a cliff, the pattern of debris will be very intricate. It is an efficient manner in which one can break rocks. Is the rock, therefore, intelligent?

        • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Tuesday October 09 2018, @02:20PM

          by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 09 2018, @02:20PM (#746442) Journal

          It comes down to how exactly you define "intelligence" - a topic of much debate.

          While that's true, it's not relevant here. *Artificial* intelligence debate is between whether things we create are "vastly, incredibly, unimaginably far" from being intelligence, or merely "very, very far" from being intelligence.

          Sure, it's debate, but it's like debating about whether a person in Los Angeles can throw a rock and hit France. "Wow, that one went two meters farther! Almost in Paris!" No. Far, far, but ever so slightly less far away is progress, it has value, it represents an advance, but it does not mean "there" nor "almost there."

          its results, which exceed by far anything yet created by the mind of Man in both intricacy, and often, efficiency?

          If I throw a rock off a cliff, the pattern of debris will be very intricate. It is an efficient manner in which one can break rocks. Is the rock, therefore, intelligent?

          Prime numbers form an intricate pattern that has so far defied all prediction. Are prime numbers intelligent--maybe more intelligent than man, because we aren't smart enough to predict their pattern yet? Gravity makes things like orbits and tides neat as you please, efficiently creating whole galaxies, which man can't do yet. Is gravity intelligent? These hypothetical questions are designed to show that intricate and efficient are nice, but do not intelligence make, if "intelligence" is to have any useful definition to distinguish it from the lack thereof.

          we *definitely* don't know what that "secret sauce" is yet, so I'm don't see how anyone can honestly claim that we *definitely* haven't captured it.

          We don't know how to take base chemicals and make kittens out of them, either, but I can honestly say that we "definitely" haven't cooked up any kittens.

          We can honestly claim that we definitely haven't made AI by the simple process of "observe situation and report same." It's not a difficult, mysterious process. No kittens from scratch, no AI.