Shulou(Shulou.com)06/02 Report--

"Isimm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."

This line from "2001 Space Odyssey" is people's initial and final fantasy about AI.

In the movie, the AI system HAL 9000, which is in charge of the entire Discovery 1 spacecraft, is an almost perfect AI image in people's minds, omniscient, absolutely rational, and able to spend time playing chess with human pilots during a long, bitter space flight. But HAL 9000 also shows the ultimate outcome of humans and AI: under the top technology design, it is difficult for ordinary people to judge whether the occasional feelings of HAL 9000 are designed or born naturally, realizing that they are actually controlled by AI, not AI. In an extremely lonely environment, humans have trusted HAL 9000, which they are highly dependent on. This sense of loss of control and mistrust reached its extreme in the lonely space flight, and eventually led the fate of mankind to the unknown.

But even if the tone of "2001 Space Odyssey" is tragic, it doesn't stop scientists from trying to connect AI to the space station. Today we're going to talk about what AI can do for the space station. Will omniscience and omniscience HAL 9000 really emerge?

Space Station AI: do what HAL 9000 did

Unlike other places, the space station is a very special environment in terms of physical conditions and applications. Unlike unmanned aerial vehicles, the space station needs the existence of "people", which is a testing ground for a new way of human existence. Therefore, how to make public AI and people in this environment is particularly important.

First of all, the space and resources in the space station are limited, and the number of personnel that can be carried is small. The more intelligent and automated facilities are, the more favorable it is for the operation of the space station. Can AI replace human beings to complete the work as much as possible, liberating the "space station productivity" of human astronauts?

At the same time, there are certain risks in space operation, coupled with the inconvenience of human movement in the weightlessness environment, the more powerful the intelligent technology, the safer the operation of the space station. Can AI realize self-inspection and maintenance in the space station?

And it is not convenient to transmit information on the space station. for example, communication between Mars and Earth takes a full 24 minutes. At this time, the more terminal decision-making power AI can provide for the space station, the more efficient the space station will be. Can AI make self-decisions under various special circumstances so that communication time will not be delayed in times of crisis?

Once again, I have to admire "2001 Space Odyssey", a film born during the Cold War, which is not only highly compatible with the imagination of space, but also very close to the logic of reality on the space station / spaceship AI.

In the movie, HAL 9000 is mainly responsible for verifying the identity of the user, recording information, planning and controlling the flight of the spacecraft, monitoring and alerting the operation of the ship, accompanying the pilots and providing them with mental recreation and support. In reality, all these are being realized one by one.

Next we can take a look at some very interesting AI cases of the space station.

View the mini-satellite of the space station

Google has launched a mobile phone-controlled floating "robot" SmartSphere, which floats freely throughout the space station and sends video back to controllers in real time to help them learn about the safety of every corner of the station. The image of SmartSphere can also be transmitted back to the ground, and the unmanned automatic judgment of the condition of the space station can be realized through image recognition.

Ideally, astronauts do not have to struggle with weightlessness and can only use terminal control to inspect the space station.

An aircraft that can turn on the "autopilot" mode.

But in any case, as the space station gets farther and farther away from Earth, the speed of information transmission is bound to become slower and slower. At this point, it becomes very difficult when you encounter space junk or want to collect fleeting meteorite data. In response to this problem, NASA provided a large amount of money to Ohio University to finance the development of "autopilot" for aircraft.

Professor Cochise, who is in charge of the project, said that his team is making self-judgment decisions about the environment of spaceships and space stations through in-depth learning of deep space data. In the future, when an emergency occurs, the space station can make decisions such as evading, changing course, collecting data, etc., between the reaction of the astronauts and the ground control terminal.

"pie face chat" Cimon

The best-known space station AI is probably Cimon, which was sent into space by SpaceX not long ago. The robot with a big pie face and honey smile is a mobile member interactive partner. Its main role in the space station is to accompany astronauts to chat and perceive their emotions through language and facial expression recognition.

But some astronauts don't like Cimon very much, and they think it's a little weird to show their emotions to robots and ask each other to analyze their own words and expressions in the lonely environment of the space station.

Imitate the "omnipotent control system" of HAL 9000

These technologies are not enough. The engineering development team of Imperial International Space Station is still working with the military on a system called CASE. The system is built entirely in the form of HAL 9000 in the movie and can control the space station, satellite base, and so on. The design of the CASE system is divided into three layers, the first layer realizes the control of the basic energy such as the power system of the space station, the second layer intelligently controls the software, and the third layer is responsible for making decisions and proposing solutions. For example, if a module in the space station is damaged, CASE will immediately propose to isolate the sub-module.

Of course, the chief engineer Pete Bonasso said that CASE will never awaken itself like HAL 9000 in the movie and do things harmful to human beings.

Unmanned space exploration and the paradox of space station

When you see this, I believe many people will feel as if there is something wrong:

First, at present, the astronauts in the space station are one in a hundred and have a very high degree of professionalism. If the AI in the space station needs to be so versatile? Do the costs of developing AI overlap with those of training astronauts?

Second, since AI can complete a series of tasks such as decision-making, recording, investigation, control, and so on, and space operations are very hard and dangerous, what we need to develop now is not the AI that can completely get rid of human space AI, instead of living with human beings in space?

In the previous analysis of AI technology in NASA, we also mentioned that unmanned is an important development direction of space exploration. In that case, isn't it meaningless for the space station to exist specifically for astronauts to visit, work and live for a long time? Is the space station AI a paradox?

Whose hand will the key to the treasure house of civilization be handed over to?

If we want to understand this problem, we can open our brains a little bit wider.

More than 6,000 years ago, in the lower reaches of the Euphrates, the Sumerians carved their cuneiform characters on stone tablets and soft clay slabs. Since then, knowledge and information have sprung up, a series of city-states have gradually sprung up in the two river basins, and the seedlings of human civilization began to feel the wind, rain and sunshine.

More than two thousand years ago, King Darius of the ancient Persian Empire, starting from the imperial capital Susa, established a post road of about 2400 kilometers to the city of Ephesus along the coast of Asia minor. The giant empires across Europe, Asia and Africa also connected the wisdom of the three continents, and human civilization evolved in the constant flow and collision.

Today, with the existence of multimedia and the Internet, there is almost no estrangement on the whole earth, and it has never been so easy for human beings to obtain knowledge and information, so that the journey of civilization can reach the sea of stars.

We all know that because with words, knowledge and experience can be better spread, human beings can conquer nature more efficiently. Because of the establishment of the post road, the transmission of information is faster, the scope of political rule can be expanded and power can be more concentrated.

Throughout history, from mud boards to paper, to phone calls and e-mails, the speed of information transmission has been developing rapidly, only in space has produced a retrogression.

What does that mean?

This means that if one day we really want to emigrate to Mars, we need to send an absolutely loyal leader to ensure that he will not do whatever he wants on Mars because the United Nations is far away; we also need to send enough skilled personnel. those who can cure diseases, those who can repair ships, those who can fly ships, and so on, in case it is too late to send messages to the ground in times of crisis. We should also send teachers of various subjects and bring enough books, otherwise our future generations will completely forget the original civilization.

In fact, it seems that it is impossible to emigrate extraterrestrials. Functional talents alone will account for the majority, and there are few holes left for the rich who can afford to buy boat tickets. Space exploration can be unmanned, but if one of the purposes of space exploration is to find another human habitat, then the human factor must be taken into account.

But the existence of AI can solve this problem perfectly.

First of all, after training, AI can perfectly replicate the management mechanism of human society, and it is not biased, corrupt or lust for power. You no longer have to worry about the sudden expansion of the mayor of Mars to take the whole Martian out of the human race.

At the same time, when AI can complete control, maintenance and other work, alien life can also reduce the dependence on basic skilled talents and move towards commercialization as much as possible.

Finally, if you have seen the movie "Alien Voyager", you will know that we are very far away from each planet, and it may take decades to fly to another planet in the future. At that time, passengers on board are likely to need to use technologies such as cryonics to go into hibernation, and it will be AI who will control the entire spaceship.

In fact, like the space station, the space station AI is part of mankind's plan for future extraterrestrial life. What we are doing so far is only a very distant experiment. Like the CASE project mentioned earlier, the person in charge said that in the future, this project will help humans on an alien base and make their life better outside the planet-but according to the plan, the prototype design will also be completed in 2069. But in any case, judging from the current trend of technological development. If we really want to live in exile in the universe in the end, not only human beings but also AI will guard human civilization in space.

Here, we have to express our worship of Kubrick again. In "2001 Space Odyssey", there is a plot in which astronauts find a black stone tablet on the moon, although there are many explanations about the meaning of this stone tablet. But here, we might as well associate this tablet with the tablet that recorded the first human civilization thousands of years ago-in the process of conquering the universe, we still gave the key to the treasure house of human civilization to AI. When the original guardian of civilization meets the last guardian of civilization, it may be the end of the story.

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