Slashdot Mirror
NASA and AI Testing
NapalmCheese writes "NASA tested their AI (Remote Agent) in space last May and it passed with flying colors. The articles makes it sound like HAL, I don't know if that is a good thing, but definately cool. The first article is found at The JPL and is nice and informative, the second article found at, rax is even more so. Hmmmm, if only it had a big red eye. "
Is this really an AI? Aren't there a set of laws that define what is truly an AI and what is just Agent software on a par with Amazon.com's ability to pick out books for me based on my past selections?
Werd.
Posted by ionic:
I disagree whole heartedly! I both think and feel that sending Man into Space is paramount; I mean think about it this way Earth is the only stomping ground of our civilization, if Earth goes we go. Therefore, the more that we push sending Man into Space and more directly seeding Mankind on the Moon, and planets like Mars ensures that should something happen to one locale in Space then at least something of Mankind would survive. The problem today is that the "leaders" in governmentally pushed space exploration (the USA) cannot get its populace behind spending more money on manned or any other type of Space exploration. Think about it, how long did it take to get the Space station in place, and we continue to sit on our "asses" looking at the moon, Mars and the asteroid belt, dreaming about them and doing nothing to bring them to reality (don't get me wrong there are some porojects whish are aimed at this but they are few and far between). If you want to talk about economics well, my guess is that there are plenty of precious resources within the asteroids which are waiting to be mined even as we jabber about the econonic feasibility of Space ventures (be it govermentally or privately funded). To get back to my major point a whole lot of us need to awaken to the fact that if there is a push in the direction of Space it will sprout new industries to support itself thereby rendering the enconomic issue a moot point. And as a side benefit of making local Space no longer a frontier we spread the seeds of Mankind onto multiple types os soil where it can both grow and wither, but we get out there.
Mike Hay
I believe that mankind knows little about the climate on a geological scale and can not yet conclusively prove we are not in danger of a catastrophic climate change caused by other than man-made circumstances.
I believe a comment by Nobel Prize winning chemist Kary Mullis that if one were to do actuary tables on the most pressing threats to mankind, one would find that a "Extinction Level Event" caused by an asteroid is possible, and our politicians will not significantly address this problem until it's to late because of financial concerns.
I believe that NASA has not focused it's efforts correctly in these matters. I believe NASA has focused on "Star Wars" type programs (both in a Cold War, Ronald Regan sense, and in a George Lucus glamorous space travel sense), when in fact they should focus more on conservation concerns such as meteor impacts.
I believe Space Studies are disproportionately funded to Under Sea studies. Hollywood has glamorized space studies, and under played deep sea exploration. Our children are encouraged to "reach for the stars" by Hollywood, and, I believe we already know more about the stars than we do about our own planet (specifically, what's going on under the seas.
I believe the answers to many of our social and cultural problems can be found through science, and science has been given a bad hand to play by the media and government. Under Sea exploration and studies my solve countless problems in geological understanding, food and fuel resources, and many other significantly neglected problems of man kind. The underwater oil and natural gas fields north of Russia are completely ignored, and could potentially solve many of the worlds economic and fuel needs. I believe underwater agriculture may be a potential solution to world hunger. I believe that Global Warming is a potential problem, and possibly significant. But, I do not believe there is conclusive proof that it is the result of mankind's actions, and therefore I believe our scientific studies of Global Warming should not be singularly focused on "lightening Mankind's Impact on the Environment." I believe that there should also be a focus on developing a way for man to cope with climate change.
When a star that may have died 6000 years ago could cause global climate change and we are so arrogent to believe it's our use of Freon, someone has thier head up there arse. Global protection from astronomical events should be our primary consirn with relation to space/NASA/etc. Otherwise, we should keep looking to understand what is going on in our own planet (and under the sea) and solve the problems at home first.
Check out http://www.eet.com/story/OEG19990607S0035 It's mostly about using analog electronics to create very simple nervous systems. A Swedish satellite set to launch this August will use such a system for it's attitude control system.
Moo!
dB!
The JPL article refers to the technology as "Synthetic Intelligence", not "Artificial Intelligence", highlighting a key idea. This "intelligence" was built, programmed, what have you. Basically, what they have is a complex program that can diagnose problems correctly. I think when the machine can accurately detect that the "false errors" it was receiving were truly false and can thus operate outside its bounds, we can call it AI.
Of course, that doesn't diminish its importance. If only we could get this sort of self-diagnostic power into our Linux and MS boxes.
Ah, See, that's MY point. We don't even have all "our eggs in one basket." We have all our eggs on probably less than 1/4 of the surface layer of a big blanket that is filling that basket. Pick it up, and some are likely to roll out. Now, rather than looking for another basket, I say we take look at what's under the blanket in our own basket.
Well, "Massive PR Exploits like the space station" keep NASA in the news and funded to do things like this. The number of new technologies and new techniques that have been developed to build ISS are staggering. Any new program that NASA undertakes usually has massive tech spinoffs that can be used in the private sector. People said the same thing about the Apollo program in the 1960's and huge technological benefits such as microcomputers and smaller IC's were gained with it. ISS is providing the same as we speak.
Do you have any idea what the ISS is for?
Unmanned probes cannot conduct long term experiments that require direct human intervention. The ISS can. What about the Shuttle you say? Well, the longest period of time it can stay in space is around two weeks, which really is not long term. ISS is one of the best things the world (Yes, the world, NASA, NASDA, ESA, and the RSA are working on it together) is doing.
It isn't always reaching the destination that is the goal, but the path along which you take to get there.
RB
BTW, Part of the human space flight program (ISS, Shuttle) involves AI development which has been pretty sucessful so far.
Speaking of Artificial Intelligence and Remote Control of something... Am I the only one that is somewhat amaized by the new Ad here from Sony for the Robotic Dog? $2500, and has been sold out since the first time I saw the ad?
Wonder what kind of interfaces it has, what the code base is, etc, etc...
Just thought I'd ask, since this might be as close as a story gets to relevent.
Is this really an AI? Aren't there a set of laws that define what is truly an AI and what is just Agent software [...]?
oh, but it is ai. this system uses a full inference engine - formal inference being one of the 'classic areas' in ai research.
here's what happens. you give the computer information about the components of the system (in this case, all the parts of the proble that it needs to know about: probably thrusters, sensors, etc.), information about what inputs/outputs these components handle, and what are the effects of those components on other components. these details should be numerous, but fairly simple - after all, one thingy can be causally directly connected to only so many other thingies.
and then once you have this network in place, you can tell the machine to achieve some goal - for example, once it reaches one a.u. from the earth it should take photos of the earth every hour.
the computer will now perform 'inference' - grovel through its network of dependencies, find all conditions that need to be satisfied for the task to be successful (open camera lens, etc.:), will satisfy them, and perform the task. furthermore, if equipment fails (as it invariably does), the internal network will get updated with the information that the goal is not achievable because of some X, and the engine will find some other way of achieving or maintaining the goal state.
judging from the telemetry log, i'm pretty sure that's the type of engine they use. high intelligence it ain't, but hey, it's better than doing everything manually the way nasa used to do it... but the term 'agent' is really ill-fitted to this application (not the least because 'agent' is one of the most widely abused terms in computer science today) - so the whole probe may be an autonomous agent in a sense that it has a concept of 'survival goals' and takes actions to make sure they are achieved, but it would be much clearer to call it an inference engine...
My other car is a cons.
But what can it tell us that Mir didn't? We already know a lot about long-term effects of microgravity. The cost of finding out what a year does as opposed to 8 months isn't worth that much money.
I guess you folks missed this one:
HARLEQUIN LISPWORKS FLIES ON NASA'S DEEP SPACE 1
Cambridge, Mass., May 21, 1999
link to pressrelease
Harlequin LispWorks is supporting the operation of the Remote Agent
Experiment (RAX), activated this week on NASA's Deep Space 1 spacecraft.
Why the space station, though? There is not one experiment to be done on the space station that couldn't be done reasonably well billions of dollars cheaper by an unmanned probe or in the space shuttle. Public support is a goood argument, I guess, but for that kind of cash NASA can do some serious PR! They could just buy commercials on "Channel 1" telling every middle school kid to be an astronaut instead of building the space station. It'd be cheaper, so they could have more unmanned probes and learn about stuff.
It's rather optimistic to think that we're at the point in human history where sending people into space is the main goal. Far from it! Where are we going to send them? We could send a few dozen people to the moon, but what good is that going to do us? No, we're better off waiting till we have something worthwhile, like at least go to Mars. And the unmannned missions are the best way to get us to where we can do that. Accomplishing the goals of the Pathfinder and Deep Space missions with manned expeditions would cost a lot, but these are the things we need to get somewhere useful.
The space station doesn't work yet; it's a big money-hole in the sky. They've given up on Mir now, too. The international space station is one of the few scientific endeavours I've seen scientists say is a waste of money.
if the schedule says the engine should be on
if the antenna should be pointed at earth
if the camera should point at a target
if the sun sensors fail
if the star sensors fail
if the heaters fail
if the gyros, radios...
I think that you will soon find that your if-then-else decision tree will have expanded to a rather unwieldy size. With certain unforseen situations forgotten.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO