Chinese researchers claimed to have carried out a “landmark experiment” by giving an artificial intelligence (AI) system temporary control of a satellite in close-to-Earth orbit in order to evaluate how it would behave in space. According to a report that was published in the Wuhan University journal Geomatics and Information Science, Qimingxing 1, a small Earth observation satellite, was managed by the AI for 24 hours and operated without any guidance from humans.
AI spotted a few places on Earth and ordered the satellite to “take a closer look”
Notably, the AI spotted a few places on Earth and ordered the satellite to “take a closer look”. The Bihar Regiment, an Indian Army regiment that engaged Chinese forces in combat in the Galwan Valley in 2020, is located in Patna, a city in northeastern India. One of Japan’s major ports, Osaka, which occasionally welcomes US Navy vessels operating in the Pacific, was the other region that was targeted. (Ambien) The scientists, however, did not elaborate on why the AI system instructed the satellite to look for these two places in particular.
The South China Morning Post reported that the research team, led by Wang Mi from the university’s State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping, and Remote Sensing, said that the experiment’s purpose was to observe what the AI would do on its own. “This approach breaks the existing rules in mission planning,” said Wang and his colleagues in their paper published on April 3.
The satellites are expensive with a limited lifespan
“The satellites are expensive with a limited lifespan. It is urgent to make the most out of their value with new orbital applications,” the researchers said. The study team was taken aback by how AI was able to command the satellite in orbit, which had hitherto only been operated in accordance with commands or assignments.
In unplanned situations like war or earthquakes, satellites are typically assigned to make long-term observations of specific objectives. Although artificial intelligence has been employed frequently in space programs for tasks like image recognition, mapping flight paths, and collision avoidance, this is the first time that an AI system has been handed control of a satellite, the researchers stated, leading to a waste of time and resources.