Chatbots that replicate human discussions have put artificial intelligence in the limelight globally. Long before ChatGPT, the space exploration business used AI to map the cosmos and assist scientists understand deep space.
“2001: A Space Odyssey,” starring HAL 9000, became a sci-fi classic over 50 years ago. Since 1968, real-life scientists have used high-tech artificial intelligence in space travel without the catastrophic outcomes seen in the film.
NASA and the ESA use AI to catalog galaxies and stars and deploy robots to faraway worlds. Experts predict further technology advances.
According to MIT’s definition of machine learning (ML), such organizations use it to train systems to detect patterns and make predictions from massive volumes of data.
“More scientific missions will use machine learning as it improves. This may mean that long space missions, which travel to areas where calibration rocket trips aren’t conceivable, may still be calibrated and provide correct data even as they move farther from Earth and the stars “In 2021, NASA blogged about machine learning and solar research.
AI can sort through unlimited space data and choose the most significant sets for researchers, reducing human mistake.
NASA has launched rovers to distant planets like Mars Pathfinder in 1997.
“Our return to Mars today heralds the beginning of a new era in the nation’s space exploration program,” remarked then-President Bill Clinton of the 1997 rover landing. “The Mars Pathfinder is the first in a decade of Mars probes. Our neighbor planet will assist us comprehend our globe and even reveal the origins of our solar system.”
About 30 years later, the space agency has sent several robots to the planet, including machine learning algorithms that enable autonomous navigation without falling into craters.
NASA’s Curiosity rover took a snapshot of wavy rock patterns this year, suggesting Mars had water.
In a February NASA article, Curiosity’s project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Ashwin Vasavada, said, “This is the greatest evidence of water and waves that we’ve seen in the entire mission.” “We went through hundreds of feet of lake sediments and never saw anything like this—and now we found it in a region we anticipated to be dry.”
AI also aids spacecraft launch mechanisms. Forbes claimed that SpaceX’s Falcon 9 drone ships launch and dock automatically using an AI autopilot system.
AI Magazine reports that researchers are using AI to clean up and prevent space debris. 330 million satellites and ship components orbit Earth. According to the magazine, European Space Agency scientists are training AI to avoid space trash and developing a long-term plan to remove it.
In March, hundreds of IT professionals, executives, and others signed an open letter calling for a six-month halt on advanced AI systems, sparking international controversy. Musk and Steve Wozniak were among the famous signatories who cautioned that “human-competitive intelligence might pose serious hazards to society and civilization.”
Last November, OpenAI debuted ChatGPT, a chatbot with 100 million monthly active users. Last month, OpenAI launched GPT-4. Based on user requests, the bot simulates human discussions.
Studies show that AI-led automation can boost productivity, GDP, financial fraud detection, and cancer detection.
Last year, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said he understood worries about the tech but hopes “that we sequentially construct more and more powerful systems that we can all utilize in diverse ways that integrate it into our daily lives, into the economy, and become an amplifier of human will.”