The use of A.I. technology in space exploration isn’t new. It actually dates back to 1998, when the comet probe Deep Space 1 was flown into space by the A.I. algorithm Remote Agent. Also, while autonomous driving systems are currently making a fuss on Earth, the technology has been in use on Mars since 2004 as AutoNav (the autonomous driving technology) has powered Spirit, Opportunity and, more recently, Curiosity rovers. These rovers are driven by an A.I. algorithm called AEGIS that intelligently chooses photo targets allowing scientists to explore areas of interest.
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And now, with further advancements in A.I., NASA is already seeking to expand its role. They already have plans in place for the Mars 2020 rover as well as the Europa Clipper that will explore whether Jupiter’s icy moon Europa harbors conditions for life. It will be interesting to see how long these missions last, especially on Europa, where the probe seeks to penetrate 10 km beneath the ice crust, and communication to and from Jupiter gets even more limited.
These projects are definitely milestones for A.I. Especially
as we are working on the robot maze project, I can only appreciate how these
algorithms navigate the rovers through various obstacles like rocks, dents, and
sand dunes, while simultaneously communicating information back to Earth. As it
travels on Mars’s surface, it collects more information about its world, which seems
like a more complex and larger version of our project.
While these missions are ambitious, I am also intrigued how far scientists are willing to go? Will this eventually lead us to extraterrestrial life forms? If we indeed find another planet that supports life, who owns it? With superpowers like China and USA competing for supremacy in AI, will this be the start of another space race?
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I think it would be very interesting to see what these algorithms can do, or if they could be applied to other vehicles less capable of tackling different types of terrain, for instance what would a self-driving car do with this AI? I also think that international superpowers competing for the space exploration/colonization is partly good, because it drives us into the unknown faster, but also bad, because if these nations collaborated the human race would get to colonizing faster.
ReplyDeleteThis topic is great because it really relates to the robot maze project we just did in class. I like to wonder what would happen if the robot was to get stuck on Mars (ie in a steep crater)? How do the people designing the robots ensure that nothing like that could ever happen?
ReplyDeleteI like to consider the effects of an extra-terrestrial's first encounter with humanity being with one of its tools. And if an AI tool has enough sentience to gather information efficiently and even converse with the alien's, are they even communicating with humanity? What will a robot's brain say about us to being's that know nothing about us?
ReplyDeleteI agree with Joe that competition for space can be a good thing, since it fosters innovation. I am assuming that if we ever discover another planet, then all the countries will probably discuss and make a treaty on how these things will be handled moving forward. It will probably be the first country to discover the planet that will own it.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the fact that self-driving cars have been around and working since 2004 in space exploration just shows that really the main problem on Earth is not the AI but the humans that will be unpredictable around the self-driving cards.
It will be cool when groups start sending different machines off to explore the universe. Maybe these machines could travel and function independent of human interaction out in deep space. I read the article about exploring the universe and those methods sound interesting too.
ReplyDeleteThis point got me thinking about the future of AI in a broader sense. For example, would we ever send a "conscious" AI out into space? The experience would drive us mad, but how about for a robot? Would these "conscious" machines decide to create their own civilizations somewhere in the cosmos? I like to think so.
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