Humanity uploaded an AI to Mars and lets it shoot rocks with lasers In late 2015 NASA gave the Curiosity Mars rover a software upgrade to let it operate autonomously. The Autonomous Exploration for Gathering Increased Science (AEGIS) code was uploaded because the rover can't be told what to do during the long periods communication with Earth is not possible. A little autonomy, NASA reckoned, …
Or, for that matter, this one
I have to admit, my first reaction to turning a "nuclear-powered space tank" equipped with a laser powerful enough to vaporize rocks over to an AI was "NOOOOOOO!!!!" And then it occurred to me that the laser's range is probably only a few feet/meters. Ah, well, not in my backyard, well that's alright then.
The Martians are far too smart and cool for that. They're actually hanging around just out of camera view, lighting their cigarettes off the laser. Later manned missions will be shocked to discover extensive graffiti on the rover, including what will later be determined to be the Martian analogue to dicks.
"The easiest way to fool a completely logical robot is to feed it with the same stimulus sequence over and over again so it gets locked in a loop. This was best demonstrated by the famous Herring Sandwich experiments conducted millennia ago at MISPWOSO (the MaxiMegalon Institute of Slowly and Painfully Working Out the Surprisingly Obvious).
A robot was programmed to believe that it liked herring sandwiches. This was actually the most difficult part of the whole experiment. Once the robot had been programmed to believe that it liked herring sandwiches, a herring sandwich was placed in front of it. Where upon the robot thought to itself, Ah! A herring sandwich! I like herring sandwiches."
"It would then bend over and scoop up the herring sandwich in its herring sandwich scoop, and then straighten up again. Unfortunately for the robot, it was fashioned in such a way that the action of straightening up caused the herring sandwich to slip straight back off its herring sandwich scoop and fall on to the floor in front of the robot. Whereupon the robot thought to itself, Ah! A herring sandwich..., etc., and repeated the same action over and over again."
"The scientists at the Institute thus discovered the driving force behind all change, development, and innovation in life, which was this: herring sandwiches. They published a paper to this effect, which was widely criticized as being extremely stupid. They checked their figures and realized that what they had actually discovered was "boredom," or rather, the practical function of boredom. In a fever of excitement they then went on to discover other emotions like "irritability," "depression," "reluctance," "ickiness," and so on. The next big breakthrough came when they stopped using herring sandwiches, whereupon a whole welter of new emotions became suddenly available to them for study, such as "relief," "joy," "friskiness," appetite," "satisfaction," and most important of all, the desire for "happiness.""
First some stock xenophobic space aliens attack our Mars bases, to stage their Earth invasion from the Red Planet. A handful of plucky (and beautiful) humans escape and try to sabotage their evil plans. When all looks lost, someone thinks to reactivate Curiosity. They program it to trundle into the aliens' headquarters and laser the control panel for the Main Reactor to blow them up and Save Humanity. Optional if you want to install an AI into it and have scenes of pathos as it is about to be annihilated in nuclear fire.
Hey, I could be a Hollywood screenwriter. Who knew.
In the sense of task scheduling and planning problem diagnosing systems.
Not exactly HAL but handy for lightening the routing burden of looking reams of stuff for any suspect patterns (or rather looking through those reams for a pattern after something has happened).
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