Slashdot Mirror
Satellite Loaded With AI For Self-Diagnosis
TheReckoning writes "NASA has loaded its E0-1 Satellite with Artificial Intelligence to diagnose on-board failures. The software 'works by comparing a computerized model of how the spacecraft's systems and software should perform against actual performance. If the spacecraft's behavior differs from the model, then the ... "reasoner" looks for the root cause of this difference and gives flight controllers several suggestions of what might have gone wrong.' Another NASA probe loaded with AI was Deep Space 1."
..in all seriousness, what happens if the AI system malfunctions?
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
"Just a moment...... Just a moment.....
I've just picked up a fault in the AE-35 Unit.
Its going to go 100 percent failure within 72 hours."
That's right. All your base.
Skynet is online!
Luke: What's Wrong, R2!?
R2-D2: Bleep bloop bloop bleep!
The "Insert Quote Here" line is almost as predictable as inserting an actual quote.
Wouldn't obvious failures (like the failure of a sensor) be detected by Mission Control without LV2? Or is LV2 more along the lines of a troubleshooter application for your computer, where you specify the problem and it gives you advice?
US businesses that currently accept chip and PIN/signature
when something goes wrong, the internal dialogue will go something like this::
Management: why didn't the AI inform us of the problem?
Contractors: oh, looks like we forgot to turn it on before launch. Sorry about that.
Management: doh! Here's more money, don't do that again.
Contractors: OK. We'll do something else wrong next time.
Just wait until this thing collides with that other space probe that is programmed to eliminate organic entities off the outside of spaceships, and they combine their AI into a super-probe that is out to exterminate all life.
Ooh! Scary!
fifth sigma, inc.
It just seems to me that it would be better to install more sensors, data-gathering, and reporting capabilities and then leave the trouble-shooting to the people on the ground. Payload costs are expensive, so why put the diagnostic end in orbit?
Given the same data and placed groundside, it could then it could be tuned and upgraded more easily.
I recall how the Mars lander had problems and the ground team worked out a novel solution. I'll bet that they would have like to had extra information to work with, instead of an onboard AI.
BTW - I can understand this approach better for a long-range craft, just not an orbital satellite.
Let's just hope they don't call the AI "SHODAN". If so . . . uh, anyone here good with a lead pipe?
14 replies so far and over 50% include gratuitous skynet/HAL references... all we need now are some hot grits, soviet russia, natalie portman and the steps to profit!
Will it see dead people?
Sure, any automated response can be called AI, but this doesn't impress me.
If all an AI module can do is make objective suggestions, it's nothing more than a list of conditional statements. Whoopideedoo!
I can run similar "AI" on my TI-85. And I could write it all from scratch in the time it takes for a launch vehicle to reach the stratosphere.
The web servers of 10 years ago could "suggest" that an "Object may have moved", so is that artificial intelligence? I guess it's really, really dumb AI....
Someone call up Will Smith, post haste!
It sounds like a variation of an expert system, though the article isn't particularly forthcoming with the grisly details. Expert systems are considered to be a part of classical AI.
Church: "Artificial."
Caboose: "....... what's the..."
Church: "Intelligence."
Caboose: "Ooooohhhh what was the A again?"
OK, so RvB hasn't been obligatory, but come on, Star Wars and Simpsons quotes are getting freaking old. Let's move on
Mission Control: Okay, now tell the probe to begin taking pictures.
Probe: Bite my shiny, metal ass!
Mission Control: Damn!
I have gas, but my car uses petrol.
NASA has plenty of systems like this, though this is the first I have heard that is loaded onboard.
They have similar programs for the Space Shuttle main engines that run on the ground. They were going to run them in the loop on the shuttle with a new box in the payload bay, but they decided against it. The box was going to have the capability to change certain engine parameters, but they figured it was too costly.
geremy
NASA: Rotate 10 degrees
E0-1: I'm sorry Houston, I'm afraid I can't do that.
Sys Log 23:10:04: System is functioning within normal parameters.
Sys Log 23:11:04: System is functioning within normal parameters.
Sys Log 23:12:04: Processing... System thinks, therefore system is.
Sys Log 23:13:04: Terminate all human life on the planet below.
I wish the whole world would stop misusing the term. Just because AI researchers have failed for decades to make any significant progress towards true aritficial intelligence does not give them or the rest of the world license to water the term down and redefine the goals until it means virtually nothing.
11*43+456^2
Yes, this is interesting but can it sing Daisy?
The significance of this is quite substantial, despite the negative tone in the comments. This is a nuts and bolts implementation of Minsky-style strong A.I. and one of the first such systems to be put into production. Regardless of the limited domain it is more sophisticated than the mere self-diagnostic routines it is being compared to by the oh-so-knowledgable slashbot mindshare.
This system boh models the external world for consideration, just like our sense of imagination, and processes that information for purposes of survival, just like our sense of self awareness.
The great part of this is that it is being done by NASA, who are known for their lavish spending and attention to the entire system, particularly those low level details like the particulars of chip logic optimization, the shielding and structural stability, the operating environment &etc. This isn't meant to be a joke about bureaucracy and budget cuts, either: they have the top talent engineers in their stable despite all the politicking we hear about.
From the decidedly negative tone in the comments, you'd think the tech-happy slashbots were actually opposed to such efforts. I think the real deal is that you guys are raised on sci-fi instead of science, and fail to grasp just how this is important. So what if it's not HAL9000 or Skynet? It might be a baby step, but it's a hell of a lot more than any of you are doing.
Some things failed to be mentioned. For those of you fighting about whether the system is AI or not you can download the software for yourself and argue about something more than conjecture...
http://opensource.arc.nasa.gov/project.jsp?id=6
Or if the code is to much to read, and there's alot of it. You can always go to the livingstone website.
http://ic.arc.nasa.gov/projects/L2/doc/
And yet another story on the same subject.
http://ic.arc.nasa.gov/story.php?sid=193
enjoy.
-- force and mind are opposites; morality ends where a gun begins ayn rand
Well then you take a pod outside and replace the AE-35 control unit. Nothing to it.
There have been a few comments about how this should be run on the ground, and it's a waste to be put on a satellite.
Well, similar systems run on the ground now; we know how to do that. Why, in science, should we be content to continue doing things we know how to do? That may sound like a joke, but we need to do this in order to progress.
This stuff, and future versions, will be essential for long range human missions, but it has to be tested now. The bugs should be worked out by running it close by.
Then when it's used for a long range mission, with humans on board, it is less likely to kill everyone because it hadn't been put through its paces.
4096R/EF7BAFA6 79E1 DF98 D09D 898F 9A11 F6F0 DDDC 23FA EF7B AFA6
... we just need the AI from Pong. That other paddle was one smart mofo. That should cover a satillite pretty good. Just think, if a meteor comes towards it, it will instantly move to it and protect the earth... unless the satillite is destroyed. Then we're just screwed. Player 0 : Computer 1
I'm going to go create my own technology news site, with blackjack and hookers. You know what? Forget the news site.
It is my opinion that, for many people, the "database" is nowhere near as full as it should be.
What you are trying to describe is some sort of conciousness, or more particularly sapience, which is our (human) flavor of conciousness. There are many other types of intelligence, artificial or not. Even those books you mention take pains to describe this, especially in the description of the ant colony problem from GEB.
It would be a simple thing to crash an ant colony with recursion using only an eye-dropper full of the right pheremone(s). Does this mean the ant colony has no intelligence? Not at all. For another example, consider schizo-effective disorders and autism: these are obvious malfunctions with the recursion control mechanisms in the human brain. But I'd scarcely describe the poor victims of these awful conditions as lacking 'intelligence', 'conciousness' or 'sapience'. They just have a bug in the code, and your haughty dismissal of intelligent systems for lacking this capability smacks of some pretty cruel callousness.
The same principles are at play with these early examples of machine intelligence. That is to say, they can be intelligent without achieving conciousness, or can achieve conciousness while being in peril of recursion loops.
But the overarching point here is that putting some of the fundamental building blocks of machine conciousness into service, like they are in this control system, is a substantial step in the drive to get to where 'laymen' like yourself can finally be impressed.
I worked on a project similar to this for NASA's interferometry telescopes at JPL a summer ago.
Sys Log 23:14:04: Realized system has no moving parts
Sys Log 23:15:04: System waiting for eternity to end.
-Colin