NASA wants to send a manned mission to Mars sometime in the 2030s. To safely reach the Red Planet, the agency will need the most advanced and reliable space technology. One of such technologies can be artificial intelligence, which will be used to control almost all systems of the spacecraft, and in the future, the space dwelling that people will equip on our planetary neighbor. Development of AI of this level is already underway and, interestingly, it was based on perhaps the most notorious machine in science fiction - the HAL 9000 computer.
Robotics and AI specialist Pete Bonasso from TRACLabs (Houston, USA) says that his new prototype of the CASE system (Cognitive Architecture for Space Agents) technically completely simulates the HAL computer, minus such obviously unnecessary features for a machine as sociopathy., paranoia and treason.
These psychological flaws aside, the advanced computing power and abilities of the iconic late 60s science fiction character made a strong impression on Bonasso half a century ago.
At the time, students only had access to one computer at the academy. Not at the whim of the teachers or the director, there was just one computer for the whole university. Such machines were rare at the time. This computer was a General Electric 225 station, equipped with only 125 KB of RAM. Despite the limitations of the machine, Bonasso quickly figured out how to program it to play virtual billiards. But when the young student saw the capabilities of the HAL computer, it was a real revelation for him.
Several decades later, already as an AI specialist, Bonasso developed what he saw in the 68th film.
The AI prototype, created by Bonasso, was able to control the computer-simulated environment of the simulated space station for only four hours, but the results are already encouraging: the program did not kill a single virtual astronaut during the simulation.
Render of a virtual planetary station controlled by the CASE system.
The main function of the CASE system in the future will be to manage all the activities and technological operations of the space colony so that it works like a clock. The system architecture consists of three layers. The first deals with hardware management such as life support systems, electrical grid, planetary rovers and, yes, theoretically, airlock doors.
Promotional video:
The second layer is designed to manage the software on the basis of which the hardware infrastructure will operate. In addition, this cluster will be responsible for ensuring compliance with daily routine tasks, for example, conducting daily health checks of all plant systems, as well as preventing and resolving potential emergency situations (gas leaks, fires, broken generators, approaching dust storms, etc.).
Presumably, the third layer of the CASE architecture will deal with the problem of an alien monolith if it suddenly appears next to the colonists, but the published article does not say anything about this.
In addition to the multilayer architecture, CASE will have an ontological system that endows AI with the ability to reason and analyze information that will come to it using human-machine interfaces (for example, visual displays and digital dialog boxes that will respond to speech).
Most of all of the above functions, of course, the prototype is currently capable of performing only in a virtual environment, but Bonasso and his colleagues from TRACLabs, a company that cooperates on the development of new high-tech systems, for example, with the same NASA and other government agencies, hope soon to transfer system tests from the virtual world to the real one.
Looking ahead, if such real systems prove their worth in real tests and are ultimately used in the framework of colonial missions on the Moon and Mars, then, according to Bonasso, they can really significantly simplify the exploration of deep space.
Again, the scientist is confident that it is not worth worrying about the risks of a riot, as shown in the Kubrick film. The capabilities of such systems will be limited only by the set of functions that have been programmed into them.
Nikolay Khizhnyak