I don't mean human level AI. That is possibly a hundred years away if not more. Just far better AI with advanced robotics that you can continuously update, repair and so on.. Humans controlling robots from Mars orbit is..not worth the risk to their lives, in my opinion for the return in science. It doesn't advance the state of the art very much either. I don't know why that mission keeps coming up, it solves so few of the problems of sending humans to Mars, but has almost all of the risks. :/
The round trip journey to Mars will still be a minimum of more than a year and will likely have significant dangers and very costly. But I was thinking, would it be a terrible idea to have AI&Robotics as a separate NASA directorate, tasked with both incorporating new technology as well as developing it for the end purpose of creating semi-autonmous teams of robots to explore planetary surfaces?
Quote from: Darkseraph on 04/04/2015 07:58 pmThe round trip journey to Mars will still be a minimum of more than a year and will likely have significant dangers and very costly. But I was thinking, would it be a terrible idea to have AI&Robotics as a separate NASA directorate, tasked with both incorporating new technology as well as developing it for the end purpose of creating semi-autonmous teams of robots to explore planetary surfaces? - Let's not forget that Mars is far from being the only interesting exploration target in the solar system. With human spaceflight you're realistically limited to exploring the Moon, some nearby asteroids and Mars. In that sense it's a dead end "technology".- Well NASA has a planetary science division, maybe it belongs there.
I think the timing is off. AI capable of making decisions on the level of a trained scientist or engineer probably will not be available by the 2030s. That is far future, if it is even possible.Sophisticated robotics controlled by astronauts from Mars orbit might be good enough to delay manned landings until colonization begins.