AI Astronomer Aids Effort To Analyze Galaxies

kkleiner writes "Scientists are teaching an artificial intelligence how to classify galaxies imaged by telescopes like the Hubble. Manda Banerji at the University of Cambridge, along with researchers at University College London, Johns Hopkins, and elsewhere, has succeeded in getting the program to agree with human analysis at an impressive rate of more than 90%. Banerji used data from Galaxy Zoo, a massive online project that has used more than 250,000 volunteers to analyze more than 60 million galaxies. The new automated astronomer will help with even larger analytical projects on the horizon, taking care of trivial classifications and leaving the tough cases to humans."

Comments

better than humans?

[samwise098]

I wonder how this program compares to a human doing the same job If given the same "training" I wonder how many humans would get a 90% agreement rate looking at the same data.

Re:better than humans?

[Locke2005]

Sense the "training" consists of being shown hundreds of thousands of galaxies along with their classifications, I doubt that many humans would live long enough to be given the same "training"...

finally?

[Black Parrot]

I'm surprised they're just now getting around to this. It's a straightforward pattern classification problem, and there is a huge set of training examples to be used for training a neural network or other Learning Classifier System technologies.

Re:My Life is Now Pointless

[$RANDOMLUSER]

I'm a Galaxy Zoomate, too, but I sure wouldn't mind an AI that would weed out even 75% of the boring eliptical galaxies, and let us concentrate on the pretty spirals and irregulars.