Mars Rover Can't Escape Ai Even On A Whole Separate Planet

AI is coming for our jobs, and now we tin adhd "Mars Rover Driver" to that list. Last month, nan Perseverance rover successfully drove not one, but 2 trips crossed nan Martian aboveground planned by AI alternatively than humans. Even better, the rover lived to show nan tale. From NASA:

NASA's Perseverance Mars rover has completed nan first drives connected different world that were planned by artificial intelligence. Executed connected Dec. 8 and 10, and led by nan agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory successful Southern California, nan objection utilized generative AI to create waypoints for Perseverance, a analyzable decision-making task typically performed manually by nan mission's quality rover planners.

We're not talking astir autonomous driving here. We already cognize that Perseverance is much amended astatine that than Earth cars. We're talking astir nan meticulous way readying that goes into nan rover's movements. Without it, nan $2.7 cardinal rover could clang into a boulder, flip complete connected uneven ground, aliases get stuck successful a soil trap like nan Spirit rover did. That's not a bully look for NASA's precarious budget.

Driving nan rover remotely successful existent clip isn't imaginable owed to nan immense region betwixt nan planets. Even astatine nan velocity of light, it takes anyplace from four to 24 minutes for power signals to scope Mars, and that overmuch clip again for signals to return to Earth. Typically, quality way planners cautiously study each disposable photos and terrain information of nan Martian aboveground to find nan safest way from constituent A to constituent B, upload nan way to nan rover, and past execute it. In this case, nan Jet Propulsion Laboratory ran nan information done Anthropic's Claude AI to scheme nan route.

NASA didn't conscionable blindly upload nan way to nan rover and dream for best. After all, AI models are eager to launch nukes successful warfare simulations, truthful engineers needed to make judge nan way wasn't going to yeet Perseverance complete nan separator of Jezero Crater, maliciously aliases accidentally. JPL has what it calls a "digital twin" of nan rover, a virtual recreation of its programming truthful that it tin trial commands to spot what will hap earlier sending them to nan existent rover. It tested nan AI programme thoroughly, complete 500,000 variables, to make judge it would activity arsenic intended connected nan Martian surface.

On December 8, Perseverance successfully drove a 689-foot AI-generated route. On December 10, it drove different 807-foot route. The rover's autonomous driving systems deviated somewhat from nan planned way based connected real-world information it gathered on nan way, but wide nan routes worked successfully. From NASA:

"Imagine intelligent systems not only connected nan crushed astatine Earth, but besides successful separator applications successful our rovers, helicopters, drones, and different aboveground elements trained pinch nan corporate contented of our NASA engineers, scientists, and astronauts," said Matt Wallace, head of JPL's Exploration Systems Office. "That is nan game-changing exertion we request to found nan infrastructure and systems required for a imperishable quality beingness connected nan Moon and return nan U.S. to Mars and beyond."

Other worlds person their hazards, but human astronauts drove rovers connected nan moon long earlier AI was nan buzzword of nan week, because they were location and could use quality driving skills to nan task. Off-world robot drivers besides don't person felony stops to rotation through, stopped schoolhouse buses to rustle by, aliases children moving retired successful beforehand of them (unless location are alien children we haven't discovered yet). As overmuch arsenic we joke astir AI stealing nan way planners' jobs, it would make consciousness for a rover to beryllium tin of scanning nan area and utilizing that, positive existing representation data, to scheme its ain way without waiting for "drivers" connected different satellite to show it what to do. It would surely velocity up travel, arsenic JPL says.