With the development of artificial intelligence (AI) on the rise, is it feasible for humans to rely upon robots to make discoveries in the harsh environments of space? It’s certainly a good question to consider.
Investments into researching and designing more human-like AI are on the rise, as AI with more similarities to humans rather than a coded program are able to complete a wider variety of tasks, especially those involving more creative endeavors. And with the automation of occupations, in that companies can replace their human workers for a more reliable and inexpensive option, perhaps the work of astronauts can be achieved by hyper-intelligent AI systems.
Recently NASA successfully landed the Insight spacecraft onto the surface of Mars (click here https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7296 to read more about the craft). The use of rovers to study the planet Mars may signal that using other robotic technologies is the best way that humans can learn more about the universe with less of the risk involved.
For starters, humans require food, water, and breathable air to maintain themselves, which not only cost a great deal of money to be shipped with the spacecrafts launch from Earth (with more fuel needing to be used), but also put time restrictions on the length that missions can be. Robots with advanced AI would ideally only need to acquire energy from solar power, a renewable source of energy.
Also, many of the fears that humans will be ultimately unable to control AIs as they learn to upgrade themselves pat our comprehension could be avoided if these AI are used for missions on uninhabited planets, where there would be no humans that the AI could harm.
Still, since these artificial intelligences are still having research being done to create them, there is time for the debates necessary for considering using AI in this realm of science.
So, what do you think?