Artificial intelligence had a huge moment in 2022. The chatbot ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI, gained notoriety for its ability to engage in seemingly human-like conversations, sparking curiosity and serious conversations about where this technology is headed. Applications in national security and space are poised to benefit from this new age of AI, says technologist Patrick Biltgen, principal at the defense and intelligence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. He says the industry is just beginning to grasp the potential of so-called generative AI, with tools like ChatGPT that create coherent and convincing written content and models like DALL-E 2 that come up with realistic images from a description in natural language. Defense and aerospace organizations have long sought AI for its ability to automate tasks, shorten decision cycles and bring autonomy into systems.

Experts say artificial intelligence -- which has wide applications across the military, civil and private sectors -- will be critical to furthering space technology as the cosmos becomes more contested. "The space environment continues to rapidly evolve," said Melanie Stricklan, CEO of Slingshot Aerospace, a space simulation and analytics company based in Austin, Texas, and El Segundo, California. "We continue to proliferate with new users and capabilities, new sensors both on orbit looking down, and on the Earth looking back up at space." Artificial intelligence can improve space domain awareness, accelerate command-and-control decisions as well as inject resiliency into satellites and their corresponding networks, she said during an online panel discussion hosted by Booz Allen Hamilton. "There's a lot of limitations for space today, but I think AI solutions really offer a transformative opportunity for ... the protect-and-defend mission on the defense side [and] for improving operations on the commercial side," Stricklan said.

The ancient Chinese game of Go has simple rules, yet is extremely sophisticated. With a large board and few restrictions, the game is said to be a googol (10 to the hundredth power) times more complex than chess. There are more possible positions in Go than there are atoms in the universe. The game, in which opponents take turns placing black or white stones on a board, is played largely through intuition. Players understand that moves made early in the game can shape the match dozens of plays later. Go's subtleties, patterns, and elegance have captivated players, scholars, and mathematicians for millennia.