2001 space odyssey ship9/3/2023 ![]() ![]() "The immense role for AI is to enable the humans to stay out of the trenches," says Steve Chien, leader of the artificial intelligence group at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory that helps rovers and probes choose which data to send back to Earth, and even select objects and areas to study on their own. But whatever it entails, this AI will help free astronauts of the day-to-day details so they can keep their focus on the mission and the science. ![]() A real-life HAL might be expected to monitor life-support systems at all times to avoid any disasters, manage power generation, perform basic autopilot navigation, keep an eye on sensors for any errors and more. What that something will be isn’t clear yet, Frank says. "We're absolutely going to have to have something." He agrees with Stofan that AI will be vitally important for human deep space missions. "You can't help but be inspired," says Jeremy Frank, a computer scientist who is leading development on AI and other automated technology for future human NASA missions, of 2001 and other sci-fi depictions of AI. For the book, Stork interviewed some of those scientists on the occasion of HAL's "birthday" (when it first became operational) in the timeline of 2001 novelization. Still, "many scientists are themselves a part of HAL's legacy," wrote David Stork, now a computer scientist at the technology company Rambus, in his 1996 book HAL's Legacy. As the main antagonist of the film, it ended up turning on the crew in an attempt to “save” the mission. ![]() It can speak, listen, read faces and (importantly) lips, interpret emotions, and play chess In 2015, WIREDreferred to him as a "proto-Siri." The crew depends on it for everything-which becomes a problem when, 80 million miles from Earth, HAL begins to behave erratically. HAL, by extension, became an important cultural reference for anybody thinking about artificial intelligence and the future of computers. Praised for its innovative vision and attention to scientific detail, the film was hailed in WIRED magazine as “a carefully wrought prediction for the future.” When it hit theatre screens in 1968, 2001 swiftly became an iconic thought-experiment on the future of humanity in space. "'Houston, we have a problem' is not really a great option, because the response is too slow," as Ellen Stofan, former NASA chief scientist, put it last month at a summit on deep space travel hosted by The Atlantic. If something goes wrong, they’ll be up to 40 minutes away from getting a reply from Earth. Unlike moon-goers, these astronauts won’t be able to rely on ground control for a quick fix. Roughly 15 years from now, NASA plans to put the first humans in orbit around the red planet, which will mean traveling farther from Earth than ever before. Today, as we look toward sending the first humans to Mars, the idea of HAL is shimmering once more at the forefront of researchers’ minds. In the film, HAL stood in as mission control center, life support and sixth member of the crew, making an ambitious Jupiter mission possible for the ship’s six astronauts. Central to this vision was HAL (Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer) 9000, the “sentient” computer that ran the crew’s ship, Discovery One. Half a century ago, 2001: A Space Odyssey imagined a future fueled by high-tech computers that thought, learned and adapted. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |