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AIs coming inverted pyramid moment for journalism – Poynter

Technology isnt just a medium through which communication happens. It has an editorial impact on how journalists collect, filter and ultimately prioritize information as well as how the audience receives and perceives it. This is the great insight from Marshall McLuhans phrase, The medium is the message.

Because of the pace of change, we already recognize the growth of generative artificial intelligence as a pivotal moment for news. What we havent braced for, and perhaps cant predict, is how the medium of generative AI will impact our message.

One of the most potent examples of technology playing the role of prime-editor the first external influence to have an effect on copy is the inverted pyramid, which has been a staple of journalism for seemingly forever. Its so foundational that it feels engrained in the nature of news itself. But the inverted pyramid as we know it today is a direct result of the technological marvel that was the telegraph.

A 2003 Poynter article titled Birth of the Inverted Pyramid: A Child of Technology, Commerce and History explains:

But the telegraph had a drawback. It was expensive to use. One of the first charges was a penny a character. Newspapers spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in telegraph costs to report the Civil War. That economic pressure more than anything else influenced a new kind of writing that departed from the flowery language of the 19th century it was concise, stripped of opinion and detail. Fueling the shift in writing style was a new type of news organization, named the wire service after the technology used to transmit the news.

This pattern, where technology acts as a prime-editor, has repeated itself through every technological revolution. Television brought us the anchorman. Search engines wrote countless boring headlines. And the wave of social sharing encouraged These 10 headlines that you have to click to believe.

When video came to social media, auto-playing silent videos with text overlays suddenly became ubiquitous. This shift, driven by platform algorithms rather than a deliberate editorial strategy, marked the pivot to video era. Ive written much about this in the past under the name of platform intelligence. Study the platform (the medium) and it will inform your editorial thrust.

With all that history to set the scene, the question again becomes: What will be generative AIs inevitable prime-editorial directive? Will it be as monumental and long-lasting as the inverted pyramid, or will it be a parallax scrolling fad? My hunch, shared by many, is the former, although the jury is technically still out.

The pace of change has been so fast that one can be forgiven for wanting to wait before declaring what the fallout of generative AI could be for news organizations.

In a provocative vision of the future, the influence of generative AI on editorial will flatten the value of producing formats. Today, a lot of time, energy and talent are spent on formatting information in just the right way. We craft stories written with grace, audio pieces meant to entice and tightly edited videos to engage. The cost of production in terms of formatting could drop dramatically.

Before we fear this future, Im not suggesting the value-add of journalism disappears, but rather shifts from production toward something else. Its that something else where the editorial influence of generative AI will become apparent.

For example, in a world where formatting and production are greatly eased, the emphasis for journalists is to find the new. What is the new information that can be formatted? When a local city council passes a bill, thats new information. The journalist should share that information and other context, such as reactions from supporters or opponents.

It wasnt too long ago when news organizations had local stringers who would call in information to the rewrite person. Some stringers probably couldnt write their way out of a paper bag, but they were great journalists who knew how to focus on the new.

With emphasis put on gathering the new, the role of the journalist is not only to be in the know but to also cultivate relationships, personal and digital, to help them stay in the know and, even more importantly, gather unique/proprietary information that will increase the value of future formatting work. If all of this sounds like shoe-leather 101, it is. The journalist-as-writer could shift back to journalist-as-person-who-turns-over-rocks.

Another second-order consequence we can imagine in the aftermath of decreased formatting costs would be a newfound emphasis on content that is provably human-created. If AI-created sales emails reach a fever pitch, we can expect to see a counterresurgence of in-person sales efforts. As cheap and dubious content spreads online, print may find a new value as a provably costly format (print production). Anything that can show the human touch could get new value, and that is the kind of editorial influence from generative AI that many folks who bleed black ink might welcome.

Generative AI will impact journalism on several fronts such as the business models and audience experience and, finally, the editorial focus/mission of news organizations around the world. The medium is the message, and I hope that as an industry we will use the momentum of this shift in our favor.

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Artificial intelligence tool may enhance usability of medical images – The Source – Washington University in St. Louis

Biomedical engineer Abhinav Jha, an assistant professor at the McKelvey School of Engineering and of radiology at the School of Medicine, both at Washington University in St. Louis, has long advocated that artificial intelligence (AI) tools used in medical applications for image processing need to be evaluated based on clinical tasks, not visual appeal.

In a study published in IEEE Transactions on Radiation and Plasma Medical Sciences, Jha and his collaborators developed a tool that demonstrates the potential to improve performance on clinical tasks. The tool has been developed in the context of denoising myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) images.

For doctors to obtain these images, which help evaluate blood flow to the heart muscle, patients first receive a dose of radioactive tracer and then remain stationary for up to 15 minutes during the scan. Reducing the dose of the tracer, the time required or both would benefit patients, streamline the process and reduce imaging cost. However, it also would reduce the ability to visualize cardiac defects with the images.

Inspired by our understanding of how the human visual system works, Jhas team developed a detection task-specific deep-learning-based approach for denoising these low-count MPI SPECT images so the quality improves. The new tool, called DEMIST, leverages a deep-learning framework to selectively clean such images while preserving features that influence detection tasks.

Read more on the McKelvey School of Engineering website.

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Trustly Unveils AI-Powered Recurring Payments Solution in Europe – PYMNTS.com

Trustly unveiled an artificial intelligence-powered recurring payments solution that is designed to streamline subscription payments.

By automating these payments, the new Trustly Recurring Payments aims to minimize churn and reduce fraud and payment failures, the company said in a Thursday (June 13) press release emailed to PYMNTS.

The solution is now available in seven European countries: France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom, according to the release.

We are leveraging AI and big data to transform the recurring payments landscape, ensuring transactions are timely and aligned with user preferences to minimize churn and increase lifetime value, Trustly Group CEO Johan Tjrnberg said in the release.

Trustly Recurring Payments enables businesses to accept recurring transactions directly from customers bank accounts, according to the release.

By doing so, it eliminates the time-consuming process of using cards and other traditional payment methods and reduces the involuntary churn rates and payment failures that result from card expirations, insufficient funds and manual entry errors, the release said.

Trustly Recurring Payments combines Direct Debit, pay-by-bank and Trustly Azura, a proprietary data engine that enhances signup processes, security measures and fund collection efficiency, per the release.

The solution also predicts the optimal times for payment success and ensures security by using biometric authorization and verified payment credentials, according to the release. It is available through a single API from one platform.

My vision is for Trustly to become the leading next-generation payment platform, enhancing security and user experience with real-time data and outperforming traditional payment methods, Tjrnberg said in the release. We are making significant strides towards empowering merchants, simplifying payments and reducing uncertainties.

Consumers are demanding more flexibility and efficiency in payment methods, and pay-by-bank solutions meet this demand effectively, Ross McFerrin, vice president of enterprise growth at Trustly, told PYMNTS in an interview posted in May.

With the advent of open banking, businesses can now establish a new connection with customers and use their banking data, Alex Gonthier, founder and CEO of Trustly, wrote in May for the PYMNTS eBook, The Implications of Uncertainty.

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Artificial Intelligence at the Edge: Evolving Homes and Factory Floors – IDTechEx

From virtual assistants in smart speakers to on-the-fly photo editing in smartphones, artificial intelligence has found its way to the edge of the computing network via specific devices. The inclusion of AI into consumer electronics products has allowed for richer user experiences, with the types of added functionalities that are now seen as commonplace.

While the majority of revenue associated with the sale of semiconductor chips that support machine learning acceleration is taken by the data centre market - given that the training of AI algorithms is more computationally intensive than what is feasible at the edge, and that not all applications require cloud-disconnected inference - the edge remains the fastest growing computing environment for AI.

This webinar, filmed in September 2023, looks at the projected growth of AI at the edge, and how individual markets are to develop with increased AI adoption. In particular, close scrutiny is given to the ways in which AI is poised to transform the home and factory settings, as autonomy and interconnectivity increases across devices.

The webinar includes:

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Apple will bring AI to devices and Siri in much anticipated OpenAI partnership – NPR

Apple software chief Craig Federighi, right, pictured with exec John Giannandrea, announced a partnership with OpenAI to bring AI features to its products. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu) Jeff Chiu/AP hide caption

Apple is going all-in with artificial intelligence, announcing several new AI features and a partnership with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI. The company announced the deal at its Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday afternoon.

The highly anticipated AI partnership is the first of its kind for Apple, which has been regarded by analysts as slower to adopt artificial intelligence than other technology companies such as Microsoft and Google.

The deal allows Apples millions of users to access technology from OpenAI, one of the highest-profile artificial intelligence companies of recent years. OpenAI has already established partnerships with a variety of technology and publishing companies, including a multibillion-dollar deal with Microsoft.

OpenAI will be integrated into Apples digital assistant Siri, Apple software chief Craig Federighi said during the conference. That would allow people to ask for help with things like recipe ideas, room decorations or composing a story, Federighi said.

Suppose you want to create a custom bedtime story for your six-year-old who loves butterflies and solving riddles, Federighi said. Put in your initial idea, and send to ChatGPT.

The announcement comes as AI has experienced explosive growth, and some embarrassing setbacks. Chatbots and AI assistants have been beset with issues including hallucinations, plagiarism and incorrect or biased results. OpenAI itself has been embroiled in allegations of copying actor Scartlett Johanssons voice without her permission.

Apple is also at the center of an antitrust lawsuit filed by the Justice Department and 15 states. The government accuses Apple of abusing its power as a monopoly to push out rivals and keep customers using its products. Its unclear how Apples new partnership with OpenAI could play into this case.

Shortly after Apples announcement, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, very happy to be partnering with apple to integrate chatgpt into their devices later this year! think you will really like it.

Apple is also rolling out what it calls Apple Intelligence, its term for Apple's own new generative AI software.

Apple Intelligence will enable transcription for phone calls, AI photo retouching and improvements in the natural conversation flow with Siri, the company said. The software can also be used to summarize notifications and text messages, as well as articles, documents and open web pages.

Federighi placed an emphasis on privacy, with a new system called Private Cloud Compute that he said will ensure data security for users.

Apple says the new features will be released later this year.

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Should I Be Scared of Artificial Intelligence? – The Banner

Should I be scared of artificial intelligence?

My default position on any new technology is doubt and skepticism. Blame my Calvinist underpinnings for that but has the latest-greatest ever really lived up to the hype? Even the experts arent sure (or arent sharing) exactly how AI works. Could this possibly take off?

Its been more than a year since artificial intelligenceespecially generative artificial intelligencetook over technology news. Generative AI allows for untold amounts of information to be ingested by powerful computers that then can generate what appears to be original text or images based on requests (called prompts) from users.

If youve read anything about generative AI, you know about the massive investments being made and the innovations, efficiencies, and new worlds AI will open for us, but there are drawbacks too: the disruption well all be facing in our workplaces and, of course, the fakery AI is capable of. Maybe youve seen (or created yourself) samples of this technology in action.

For me, a turning point for my skepticism was a test offered by The New York Times to see if people could determine whether pictures were real or AI-generated. Im a visual guy and thought this would be easy. I failed miserably.

So, should we be scared? When its not clear what is real and what is not, were left to wonder, or worse, give up and just believe what we see. Yes, that is scary.

In a 2023 Atlantic article, philosopher Daniel C. Dennett calls people posing as someone other than their real selves counterfeit people. He makes a compelling argument that creating [or passing along] counterfeit digital people risks destroying our civilization. His solution? Treat counterfeit people like we do counterfeit currency.

Although he admitted it might be too late already, he argued for complete transparency of what has been created by AI and for making sure we have technology (smartphones, scanners, digital TVs, and so on) that can detect counterfeits. And then, just as importantly, we should make counterfeit content creatorsincluding tech company executives and technicianslegally liable for the lies they are telling with AI text and images.

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4 Ways to Reduce the High Cost of Artificial Intelligence Errors – ICTworks

People make mistakes all of the time. To err is human, after all. Our organizations and institutions have evolved to manage those mistakes through training and processes. Brain surgery is supposed to be performed by well-trained brain surgeons. Office buildings go through extensive processes to ensure their safety. These systems reflect our understanding of human fallibility and our efforts to mitigate it.

However, this approach to human error does not directly translate to the realm of artificial intelligence technology. Too often, the amazing things AI can do dazzles people to the point of assuming that the machines are perfect, or nearly so. This is not the case with real-world applications. AI systems make a lot of mistakes, and they tend to make different mistakes than humans. As a result, our human-oriented organizations are frequently ill-prepared for the patterns of AI mistakes.

As exciting as the latest generative AI solutions can be in terms of creating prose (or graphics), they are still limited. Computers are still dumb as bricks: they dont understand their output. They are simply able to do certain things very well and/or very fast based on the data on which they were trained.

Inside the tech industry, they are derisively described as stochastic parrots, spicy autocomplete, or spellcheckers on steroids (the last one is mine). Weve all seen spellcheckers improve over time from spotting basic typos to commenting on punctuation, grammar and style. And, we are all used to hitting ignore when the spellcheckers often get something wrong.

The cost of AI-made errors varies widely. Ignoring a spellchecker recommending the wrong word costs a person a few seconds. A bad AI-generated text transcript of a voice recording might take more time to edit and correct than it would take to have someone simply type out the transcript. An AI tool missing a curable tumor in a medical image could result in someone losing their life (assuming a human radiologist would have spotted the tumor if they had looked at the image).

Beyond the direct costs, there can also be reputational costs experienced by an organization when an AI-caused error reflects badly on it. Open-ended AI applications, where any kinds of input can be entered, can often be manipulated to generate negative outcomes which are uncommon but still possible. The press has been full of cautionary tales about AI-caused errors.

International technology users are familiar with the patterns of U.S.-centric technology companies when it comes to handling errors.

Even with these negative stories in mind, I am still a big supporter of using AI for all types of organizations, from for-profit companies to NGOs and government agencies. However, real AI applications are rarely as miraculous as popularly portrayed. The end goal of almost all AI solutions should be in making human beings more efficient and effective. Who wouldnt want a given group of people to be able to accomplish 10-20% more with a relatively modest expenditure?

So, how do you gain the benefits of AI without becoming a negative news story (or spending more on implementing a new AI solution that doesnt work out)? Here are some simple recommendations.

Dont start running around feeling like you must immediately apply AI to something, anything. This wont work any better than forcing blockchain or metaverse technology on your organization worked out well for anybody over the past few years.

Starting with a tech solution and then looking for an application doesnt work as well as starting with a problem and picking the right tech to help solve that problem.

Look for repetitive or time-consuming tasks where an AI-based solution might save your team, or the people you serve, valuable time. This is where AI shines, if you have enough data to train the AI.

Avoid handing over life or death decisions, or decisions about serious amounts of money, to an unsupervised AI algorithm. Favor closed-ended applications, where the possible outcomes from the AI are constrained to a preset list of options.

A good example of this is helping users find the right tech support article from a fixed database of articles, where an error would be simply directing them to an article that doesnt address their specific issue.

Use AI to support a human being do a task faster or better, but where the human is responsible for the outcome. One of the biggest benefits of maintaining human beings in the loop is to limit the impact of AI errors.

A simple rubric for generative AI (like ChatGPT) is word substitution. I used to joke that if you took a claim about blockchain, and replaced the word blockchain with database, and the claim made no sense, then it made no sense! For example, if the claim is Blockchain will solve world hunger, the revised implausible claim would read A database will solve world hunger.

If you take generative AI and replace it with spellchecker on steroids, and it makes no sense, be very careful! ChatGPT is a great tool for improving written materials common to so many organizations. And, if its five or ten times as useful as a spellchecker, thats pretty exciting. But, sending out cover letters, legal briefs, customer communications and grant applications directly from tools like ChatGPT is not likely to go well.

The new wave of AI tools is an exciting step forward for information technology. Unlike blockchain, which has yet to revolutionize the social impact field, AI already has transformed software technology and will continue to have outsized impacts.

However, generative AI is not a panacea, its just a bigger than average incremental step. If you can successfully make human beings more powerful and effective while avoiding unaffordably expensive mistakes, including possibly damaging your reputation, then you are likely to be successful deploying this latest technology.

By Jim Fruchterman, the founder of Tech Matters

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Plug and Play Partners with UN Tourism for Artificial Intelligence Global Startup Competition – PR Newswire

SUNNYVALE, Calif., June 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Plug and Play has announced the second call for applications in partnership with UN Tourism. The UN Tourism Artificial Intelligence Global Startup Competition is the second call of application in a series of three startup competitions aimed at making the tourism sector more sustainable. The competition launched today at Plug and Play's Silicon Valley Summit.

This global initiative aims to drive progress in the tourism sector towards the Sustainable Development Goals by harnessing the potential of cutting-edge technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Augmented and Virtual Reality.

Accelerating SDGs through Innovation and Technology

The UN Tourism Artificial Intelligence Global Startup Competition highlights the transformative potential of innovative solutions, propelling the tourism sector towards recovery while empowering it to play a pivotal role in achieving the global goals outlined in Agenda 2030. This initiative invites startups worldwide to lead change in tourism towards a sustainable, inclusive future aligned with global aspirations for a better world.

UN Tourism Executive Director, Natalia Bayona, says: "We stand at the dawn of a new era in tourism, where innovation is key. We can't forget that the global smart tourism market is projected to reach 126.889 billion dollars by 2033, growing 16% since 2023 and 2.2% of global venture capital is flowing into tourism and technology startups. This new era in tourism is being shaped and guided by the transformative power of Artificial Intelligence. The future of tourism is here, and it is intelligent, efficient, and sustainable".

Benefits for Participants

The competition invites early-stage and series A startups to apply before July 31. Benefits for participants accepted include:

Selection and Evaluation Criteria

The competition is open to startups worldwide, spanning various industries and emphasizing innovation, sustainability, and scalable business models with potential for international growth. Participating startups will be assessed based on their contribution to the selected SDGs, ease of value capture through collaboration, potential business impact, maturity of the product and technology, team and organizational structure, and partnership readiness.

Plug and Play's Role inSourcing and Scouting Startups

Plug and Play's role in the competition involvessourcing and scouting startups for initiatives like the UN Tourism Artificial Intelligence Global Startup Competition, aimed at supporting the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals through technology. As a global innovation platform connecting startups, corporations, and investors, Plug and Play is committed to driving technological advancements and innovation across 25+ industries. This initiative seeks to cultivate a collaborative ecosystem for sustainable and inclusive innovation worldwide.

All interested potential participants can apply to the call for applications on the following page: https://www.plugandplaytechcenter.com/un-tourism-artificial-intelligence-global-startup-competition/.

About Plug and PlayPlug and Play is the leading innovation platform, connecting startups, corporations, venture capital firms, universities, and government agencies. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, we're present in 60+ locations across 5 continents. We offer corporate innovation programs and help our corporate partners in every stage of their innovation journey, from education to execution. We also organize startup acceleration programs and have built an in-house VC to drive innovation across multiple industries where we've invested in hundreds of successful companies including Dropbox,Guardant Health, Honey, Lending Club, N26, PayPal, and Rappi. For more information, visit https://www.plugandplaytechcenter.com/

Plug and Play Contact:[emailprotected]

About UN TourismThe World Tourism Organization (UN Tourism), a United Nations specialized agency, is the leading international organization with a decisive and central role in promoting the development of responsible, sustainable, and universally accessible tourism. It serves as a global forum for tourism policy issues and a practical source of tourism know-how. Its membership includes 160 countries, 6 territories, 2 permanent observers, and over 500 Affiliate Members.

UN Tourism Contacts: Rosalia Galan - Communications Expert IEI - Un Tourism Regional Office Middle East [emailprotected]| +966 555908142

Lara Kabbara Administrative Associate IEI - Un Tourism Regional Office Middle East [emailprotected]| +966 508887969

Miriam Rubio IEI Senior Specialist Innovation, Education and Investments [emailprotected] +34 687964076

SOURCE Plug and Play

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Why is Pope Francis speaking about AI at the G7 summit? – NPR

Pope Francis leaves evening prayers in the Vatican Gardens on June 7. The pope will meet this week with G7 leaders to talk about the ethics of artificial intelligence. Alessandra Tarantino/POOL/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

BARI, Italy When leaders of the world's leading industrialized nations meet in Italy this week, they'll be joined by a unique guest to talk about the risks posed by artificial intelligence: Pope Francis.

This is the first G7 summit to feature a pope as an invited participant. But it's not the first time that Pope Francis has weighed in on this emerging technology and how he believes it should be developed for the good of humanity.

"Right now, we have lots of ability to use artificial intelligence for bad purposes, but how can we ultimately direct it toward something which is actually beneficial to human beings, something that brings us together?" said Brian Green, director of technology ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University.

Pope Francis himself has been at the receiving end of AI misinformation. Last year, a picture of the pope wearing a large white puffer coat went viral. The image was generated by AI, and it prompted conversations on deepfakes and the spread of disinformation through AI technology.

AI-generated image: a fake image of Pope Francis wearing a white puffer jacket. Pablo Xavier; annotation by NPR hide caption

In his annual message on New Year's Day this year, the pope focused on how AI can be used for peace.

His work on the issue goes back several years, when the Vatican and tech companies like Microsoft started working together to create a set of principles known as the Rome Call for AI Ethics, published in 2020. Companies and governments that sign on to the call have agreed to voluntary commitments aimed at promoting transparency and accountability in AI development.

"The Italian government has been seeking to elevate the messaging behind the Rome Call for AI Ethics and also secure new signatories," said Gregory Allen, the director of the Wadhwani Center for AI and Advanced Technologies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

G7 leaders have been discussing artificial intelligence and AI ethics for years now. Last year, when Japan hosted the summit, G7 nations agreed to some international principles on AI called the Hiroshima framework.

Neither that framework nor the Rome Call are legally binding documents, but they do provide a pathway for accountability and future laws, Allen said.

"A lot of that [Hiroshima] language is now reflected in the text of the European Union AI Act, which is a compulsory piece of legislation. And in the United States, similar ideas are showing up in things like the White House voluntary commitments on AI that the White House negotiated with several companies," he said.

Allen said AI has been addressed at G7 ministerial meetings in the last several months, including how AI will impact labor and economies. And he expects G7 leaders to focus on AI's impact on disinformation, especially because so many elections are taking place around the world this year.

Pope Francis is expected to focus on ethics in his remarks at the G7. Santa Clara University's Green, who was involved in an AI report that the Vatican released in 2023, said he thinks the pope may mention ways that AI could be used to help poor people and protect the environment.

The pope will bring a different perspective on the technology than a political leader would, Green said.

"As a religious leader, the only thing he really has is his moral authority, which means that he can't really come with a big political agenda to something like this. He can't come with a huge economic agenda, but he can come with a moral agenda," Green said.

"There is a chance here for ethics and politics to work together to create a better world, specifically with this very powerful technology which is going to be transforming the future."

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Seattle Space Week: Find out how artificial intelligence is taking over the final frontier – GeekWire

Robonaut 2 (at left) was one of NASAs early forays into the world of robotics and AI. (NASA Photo)

Will intelligent AI agents take on the job of capsule communicator in future missions to the moon, Mars and other space destinations?

It could happen, says James Burk, the executive director of the Mars Society.

One of our advisers did a really deep dive on how the Apollo astronauts interacted with each other and with the CapCom back on Earth, and he came to the insight that the Apollo 17 astronauts were using CapCom almost like an AI bot because the CapCom knew everything, Burk said during a panel discussion focusing on the intersection of artificial intelligence and space ventures.

You can imagine having an AI edge device which could be like a rover following the crew around, walking around the moon or Mars, he said. Its watching them and taking stock of how everyones doing.

Tuesdays panel was a crossover session presented at Madrona Venture Labs by the Washington Technology Industry Association for Seattle AI Week, and by Space Northwest for Seattle Space Week. When you think about the kinds of megatrends of our time, two of the big ones are space and AI, said Mike Doyle, Space Northwests president and co-founder.

Putting AI into space adventures isnt exactly a new idea: The best-known sci-fi example is HAL, the AI who goes psycho in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Theres also the no-nonsense computer voice in the Star Trek saga, or Marvin the Paranoid Android in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

But the real world isnt science fiction. Yet.

I dont think were going to see a HAL business, said Keith Rosema, a partner at Madrona Venture Labs who has previously worked at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Jeff Bezos Blue Origin space venture and the late Paul Allens Vulcan Inc.

Instead, AI is helping humans make sense of the flood of imagery and other data coming down from Earth orbit. Kelsey Doerksen, a Ph.D. student at the University of Oxford whos affiliated with JPL, said one of her jobs is to make space scientists life easier specifically when it comes to doing atmospheric science.

When were trying to run physics-based models, with hundreds if not thousands of different parameters and various tweaks of how you could initialize your parameters and these physics models, it takes hours, days, weeks to run these types of models to get results out, she said. Whereas with the AI pipeline that were building at JPL, we can do things in a matter of hours.

Hanna Steplewska, the president of Seattle-based Cognitive Space, said AI-driven software tools are making headway in the commercial space industry. For example, a search engine called Danti is optimized to sift through Earth observation data.

Multiple companies including BlackSky, which has deep roots in Seattle employ AI to help government and commercial customers make sense out of a variety of geospatial data, ranging from satellite views to social media. Microsoft and the Allen Institute for AI have also gotten into geospatial data analysis.

Steplewskas company is focused on applying AI tools to the thorny problem of tracking thousands of satellites in low Earth orbit.

Cognitive Space has a very clear 10-year goal, she said. We want to orchestrate a million intelligent machines across a multiplanetary system. So, everything that were learning about how to fly constellations effectively applies to constellations of things that are on Earth, on the moons surface, in orbit around the moon, in orbit around Mars, on Mars surface and beyond.

What about generative AI, which has quickly revolutionized so many tech sectors? When it comes to space operations, one of the big technical hurdles has to do with the fact that large language models really dont know that much about the final frontier. Burk recalled a test case that the Mars Society ran, in which ChatGPT was asked to design a valve for a zero-pressure, high-altitude balloon.

The answer it came back with was factual but it was totally wrong, he said.

Doerksen said satellite constellations could provide the perfect use case for training better AI models and automating space operations. If youve had the same satellite launched in 2015, and a similar generation in 2022, you can use that historical data to train a model to still be used in the future, she said.

The AI revolution isnt just affecting space operations on Earth: The Seattle areas biggest players in AI and cloud services Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure are working with partners to expand edge computing to the edge of space. This year, a Seattle-area startup called Lumen Orbit came out of stealth with a plan to send hundreds of data-center satellites into orbit. The idea is to run data through AI models in space, and then downlink only the most valuable bits.

You know, there was a Super Bowl commercial for Salesforce recently that said something like, If AI is the Wild West, isnt big data the new gold?' Burk said. I think our approach to get ready for AI at the Mars Society, with our scientific research, is to really be thoughtful about how were collecting data, to have standards where they dont exist.

In the years to come, maybe AI will just blend into the woodwork or more accurately, the silicon and steel of space infrastructure.

I will hold back from saying [that] in 10 years well have an AI overlord, Rosema said. In all seriousness, I actually think this might be more boring. Right now, AI is very much in our face. And if I look at other historical technical trends internet, mobile phones originally, those things were all very much in our face. I hope that AI does the same thing: It just melts into the background and becomes another power tool for us.

But maybe space-based AI will become more than a power tool. During NASAs uncrewed Artemis 1 mission, which circled the moon in 2022, Amazon teamed up with Lockheed Martin and Cisco to put an Alexa-type voice assistant inside the Orion capsule. During future missions to deep space, a smarter version of the assistant could keep a spacecrafts crew up to date on whats happening around them and, in the words of an Amazon executive, provide some form of companionship.

Hmm Burks AI CapCom might not be such a flight of fancy after all. Lets just hope it doesnt end up turning into HAL.

Other highlights from Seattle Space Week:

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