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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."
Don't switch me off Dave
it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
"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.
>
There's another AI to monitor the sanity of the AI. And another AI to monitor the sanity of the AI that monitors the sanity of the AI. And another AI to monitor the sanity of the AI that monitors the sanity of the AI that monitors the sanity of the AI. And another AI...
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
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....
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
Bingo - you have hit that nail on the head. These sorts of systems in aerospace applications are absolutely notorious for detecting proper (but off-nominal) operation as a failure, and then going off and reconfiguring a bunch of stuff unnecessarily. Or diagnosing real problems incorrectly, and either not helping or making things worse, or much worse.
Even more importantly, the testing associated with these systems is very expensive and time-consuming - which means they don't really test it very well at all.
I've seen similar systems in action in real space flights - and for the most part, it just makes things worse. If you were to limit yourself to simple things you really could detect, it would work out fine for the most part. But the tendency is to make it try to be a magic fixit device for any problem that comes up.
In one case, I saw such a system deploy an appendage in conditions that resulted in the spacecraft structure being severely damaged. In another, it reconfigured every spacecraft system to the redundant unit in response to a trivial problem - when all that would have been required would have been to wait 20 minutes, then correct the trivial problem.
Brett
Title says
Paragraph 6 says :
Conclusion: It's not self-fixing. It beams an analysis down to mission control, the crew can then take measures based on this analysis.
Broken Hearts are for Assholes. - Frank Zappa
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
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