NASA will keep safety in mind while harnessing the ever-growing power of artificial intelligence, agency officials emphasized.
Artificial intelligence (AI) technology is evolving rapidly, as evidenced by the emergence of tools such as ChatGTP. The emerging field could help NASA make transformative discoveries, agency officials say — but there are potential pitfalls.
“Artificial intelligence poses a great risk because if it is used in ways that are not for the betterment of humanity, it can be catastrophic,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said today (May 22) at an AI town hall the agency hosted with its staff.
“AI can make our work more efficient,” he added during the live stream. “But only if we approach these new tools in the right way, with the same pillars that have defined us from the beginning: security, transparency and reliability.”
Related: How Artificial Intelligence Could Help Find Alien Planets and Asteroids
NASA is no stranger to artificial intelligence; the agency has been using the technology in various capacities for decades, Nelson pointed out. However, AI capabilities are improving rapidly these days, so NASA is increasing its efforts to understand this technology as well as to develop and deploy it properly.
Last week, for example, NASA announced the appointment of its first-ever head of AI — David Salvagnini, who served as the agency’s chief data officer. And he and his colleagues aim to make NASA’s entire workforce more AI-literate soon.
“Part of what we’re going to do — and you’ll see an announcement soon — is the ‘Summer of AI,’ which is a training initiative where everyone at NASA will have an opportunity to learn more about AI,” Salvagnini said at today’s town hall.
“It’s literally a campaign,” he added. “It will be a sort of increase, if you will, of training opportunities.
Salvagnini also discussed AI security. Responsible use of technology starts with a mindset that keeps humanity at the center and responsible, he said. Salvagnini said he would prefer the term “assistive intelligence” to “artificial intelligence” because it keeps us in the driver’s seat.
AI “is a resource that I now have access to that can help me in my decision-making process,” Salvagnini said. “The AI ​​is not responsible for the outcome. The person is, the person.”
He pointed to weather forecasters’ modeling of possible hurricane tracks as an analogy for the responsible use of AI. Modelers present several potential routes because they are aware of the limitations of the data sets they are analyzing. In other words, they use their judgment.
“So how do we keep it safe?” Salvagnini said. “We understand our responsibility as the ultimate person in charge when it comes to… our work products. And if we happen to use AI as part of generating the work product, that’s fine, but just understand its capabilities and limitations.” “
But AI security wasn’t the only topic at today’s town hall; agency officials also spent considerable time extolling the technology’s promise.
“AI will help us in many areas,” said NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy.
She cited the technology’s ability to quickly and efficiently sift through vast amounts of information—an ability that could lead to major breakthroughs in heliophysics, Earth science, and astronomy.
“We don’t even know yet what new insights we’ll gain by using these new techniques to look at old data in new ways,” Melroy said.
Some of those insights could be an indirect benefit of the technology, she and other speakers at the town hall said: AI could increasingly take over the mundane, labor-intensive tasks of analyzing data, allowing NASA employees to solve harder and harder problems.
Melroy ended her prepared remarks today with qualified AI support, striking a tone similar to that set by Nelson and Salvagnini.
“So, in closing, I just want to emphasize that this is a powerful, ingenious and very exciting tool,” she said. “But if we don’t manage it responsibly, we open ourselves up to a world of risks that threaten our credibility and our mission.”