Intelligent Satellite Notices Volcanic Activity 116
Dik Zak points us to this NASA page about a new generation of intelligent Earth observation satellites. From the article: "The Indonesian volcano Talang on the island of Sumatra had been dormant for centuries when, in April 2005, it suddenly rumbled to life. A plume of smoke rose 1000 meters high and nearby villages were covered in ash. Fearing a major eruption, local authorities began evacuating 40,000 people. UN officials, meanwhile, issued a call for help: Volcanologists should begin monitoring Talang at once. Little did they know that, high above Earth, a small satellite was already watching the volcano. No one had told it to. EO-1 (short for "Earth Observing 1") noticed the warning signs and started monitoring Talang on its own. Indeed, by the time many volcanologists were reading their emails from the UN, 'EO-1 already had data,' says Steve Chien, leader of JPL's Artificial Intelligence Group."
...but did it tell anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Inefficient use of funds (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Inefficient use of funds (Score:4, Insightful)
The US has had satellites that detect missile launches for decades. Calling this thing AI is a stretch; a sensor picks up something and it starts collecting. Maybe some pattern matching, not much else.
Re:Inefficient use of funds (Score:5, Insightful)
OK, I'll bite. I'm a scientist who does utterly useless, blue-sky type stuff that will never make anyone money, or save anyone's life. So why should anyone pay me to do things that don't have a clear payoff?
The answer I've come up with is that these things- pure research, art, music, philosophy, museums- may not make us live any longer, and they may not make us richer, but they make our lives richer. Sure, if we diverted all government funding from the arts, public TV, the Smithsonian, the National Parks Service and soforth, and used it to fund stuff that would directly benefit people, people might live longer, more comfortable lives. But a world with less art, music, museums, and pure research is a deader, duller, less interesting world. Who'd want to live in that world? I'm not saying that justifies any level of funding, you've got to figure out how many dollars you're willing to pay for each "Angels in America" (an incredible work funded by the NEA, incidentally), but it's worth something and I'm more than happy to have my tax dollars promote that kind of thing. It's a hell of a lot more productive than having my tax dollars kill my countrymen and foreigners in the Middle East. And a hundred million a year works out to what, 30 cents per American on the arts?
The other answer is that there is a payoff, but it's a long-term, indirect one. Look at a city like New York. It's a vibrant, changing, economic powerhouse. Part of that, I think, is that the city is so filled with the arts- writers, photographers, musicians, scholars and soforth- that it's just a damn interesting place to live. Many of the best and the brightest from across the nation are drawn to the city because they want to experience a place that's alive intellectually and artistically, and in the long term that helps the city to reap huge economic benefits. I think a vibrant culture will help foster a vibrant economy. If nothing else, millions of people visit cities like New York and San Francisco to take in that culture, spending a lot of money in the process. So I think that long term, a few dollars wisely invested in the arts and academia are a good move.
automatisation is not intelligence (Score:2, Insightful)
All the system does is basically to compute the score (interest) of the different points of the earth's surface using predetermined criteria (plume of smokes +5 points, flash-floods +2 points) set by humans, and then allocate observation time in priority to the points that have the highest score. This is not what I call intelligence.
An intelligent system would set its own goals, not follow predetermined ones. In this case an intelligent system would decide by itself that a certain phenomenon is interesting and decide to observe it, without being told about it beforehand.
If intelligence is their goal they have a long way to go.
Re:Inefficient use of funds (Score:3, Insightful)
After all, it's not as if Toby's own economic potential didn't completely rely on the fact that he works in a nation whose citizenery benefited from the advances in science that such 'inefficient' research produces! No of course not! No, Toby is one of those billions of $2 a day workers who happens to have access to the Internet. An inefficient, failure of an attempt by the US and NATO signatories to create a decentralized network of communication capable of withstanding nuclear war.
And after all! It's not as if Toby's own opinion on EO-1 isn't well researched and thought out, I'm sure that right now he can spout off all of the sundry mission objectives that EO-1 has, as well as how successful so far it has been at meeting them.
No ladies and gentlemen, Toby has successfully shown to the world how selflessness and a broad world view, focused not on the impact of others actions upon oneself but on the impact of one's own actions upon others, can completely trump the necessity for government taxes collected for the benefit of it's citizens and applied in the pursuit of making their life better.
After all, if it were up to him, we'd just donate it all to the $2 a day workers! I'm sure that would make their day. For a week....
Re:Inefficient use of funds (Score:3, Insightful)
@Toby: Living in Europe, I handily pay more taxes than you, yet I don't go whining about it. If you pay taxes, that means you have a job and an income and a means to feed yourself, plus a bunch of comforts probably far beyond the necessary. This being the case, how much have you donated to the cause of feeding poor people on the other side of the planet? Nothing? OK, so now that we know your motivation is largely simple greed, let's proceed to talk about priorities.
Only a knuckle-dragging halfwit would get incensed about his government's expenditures in research while staying silent about the uncalled-for, counterproductive and outrageously expensive war his country chooses to blow his taxes on. Please note, Mr. Economist, that
and, on a totally unrelated topic also near and dear to your wallet,
I wouldn't object so much to your foolish rant if it didn't make it obvious that you have no idea of the difference between major costs and minor, important and unimportant.
Never mind, I'm sure I'm not reaching you. I hope you contribute generously to the abolishment of science education in schools. You know, science has been known to get in the way of teaching the Truth about Creation.