NASA Boosts AI For Planetary Rovers

transcendent writes "According to Space Daily, NASA is working on increasing the ability of future rover's AI. From the article: 'It now takes the human-robot teams on two worlds several days to achieve each of many individual objectives... A robot equipped with AI, on the other hand, could make an evaluation on the spot, achieve its mission faster and explore more'. Sounds like a good idea, but the article continues, 'Today's technology can make a rover as smart as a cockroach, but the problem is it's an unproven technology'. Another article about autonomous rovers being developed by Carnegie Mellon University is here."

Comments

I can see it now....

[fatgeekuk]

Radio contact broken when the rover hides under a rock...

Re:I can see it now....

[Anonymous Coward]

Earth's first contact with Alien Life:

ROBOT AI: Hello. Where do you want to go today?

ALIEN LIFE FORM: Danger! Danger!

What it should say...

[BubbaThePirate]

'It now takes the human-robot teams on two worlds several days to achieve each of many individual objectives... A robot equipped with AI, on the other hand, could make an evaluation on the spot, achieve its mission faster and kill off the remaining crew members with higher efficiency.'

Fertility crach course

[Lettuce B. Qrious]

That's great! If they could make those rovers as fertile as cockroaches, too, we could have the entire surface of Mars covered in no time!

Obey

[kamukwam]

Of course these robots must obey the three laws!

Re:Obey

[Konstantinos]

1. A robot may not injure a cockroach or, through inaction allow a cockroach to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given it by cockroaches except when such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Scary...

as intelligent as cockroach?

[osho_gg]

Now, if only they can make it as death-resistant as cockroaches that would be something..

sounds good

[Madcapjack]

Sounds good. The only thing that I might worry about, is that it might decide, on its own, to make a religious pilgrimage out to visit its (by then) deceased brothers Opportunity and Spirit.

.

I said that with a straight face.

I can't move the muscles in my face anyway.

Re:Long distance

[MachDelta]

Because a rover on mars has about the same chance of reproducing as an average /.'er?

Cockroaches and Rovers

[MMHere]

So the only thing left after the next Big Bang will be Rovers? When I flip on the kitchen light, will little mechanical eyes blink and then instantly stainless steel wheels spin/clatter across the floor?

Out of control?

[Turn-X Alphonse]

Do we REALLY want AI running around on Mars without any way to control it?

AI : Must look at rock, rock looks boring... oohh shiney metal UFO lemme go play with it.
NASA : Bob R2-D2 please return to your mission
AI : No, rocks suck. You can't do anything to me so I'm not going to listen to you.

Give it a couple of weeks, a railgun, maybe a rocket launcher and then it's like playing space invaders but in reverse every time we try to land on Mars.

Re:Out of control?

[tiled_rainbows]

Funny, I imagine it more like this:

>N

Plain
You are on a flat red plain, featureless apart from occasional scattered rocks. To the East lies a crater.

>E

Crater's Edge.

You are on the edge of a shallow crater. You can go down into the crater, or West, back to the plain.
There is a small rock here.

>look at rock

You can't see anything like that here.

>Look at stone

You can't see anything special about the stone.

>Test stone for life.

I only understood you so far as wanting to test the stone.

AI - Artificial Intelligence....

[3seas]

... nothing is naturally that stupid.

unproven technology bad for nasa

[SetupWeasel]

They have trouble with proven technology like calculators.

1 inch = 2.54 cm

Totally Uncalled For

[MooseByte]

"Because a rover on mars has about the same chance of reproducing as an average /.'er?"

Hey now, that kind of generalized bashing is totally uncalled for... the Mars rover has a much better chance.

Along the roach idea....

[3seas]

... and given some of the posts/comments...

Isn't all that is really needed just a landing of a main transmitter/receiver along with what amounts to a bunch of ant or roach like robots that go out in various directions and transmit back to the main transmitter that relays it back to NASA?

To increase the overall data collection.

Looking for signs of life on mars.... hummm... that could pose a problem, if the small robots see eash other.

Oh hell screw it, lets put life there, wouldn't that just solve the quest for life on mars?

Re:Sounds bad...

[foobsr]

To my knowledge, cockroaches are easy to get close to and step on.

I have empirical evidence which is different from that. A good trick, though, is to have a 'honeypot' shoe on the floor where they will hide and then ...

CC.

Probe should know how to do CPR

[p0]

... just in case it bumps on Beagle 2

Re:Hold your horses!

[FleaPlus]

Very useful, if only for the hunter-seeker algorithm.

I didn't realise they were that smart!

[Paul Crowley]

I hadn't realised that robots had got that good yet.

Still, I for one...

Re:Hold your horses!

[Cygnus78]

Guess what? A neural network is a simple nonlinear function. Period.

And the brain is just a little harder nonlinear function. Period.