| This study investigates the tactical and strategic use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Diverse tactical applications of AI, under development by scientists at NASA Ames Research Center, are reported. The strategic role these AI applications may play i n NASA's mission is examined, in light of discussions with, and documentation provided by, senior management at NASA Headquarters.; The science of AI is controversial; critics maintain that efforts to develop sentient machines are futile. Alternatively, some proponents believe that AI will eventually surpass human intelligence, and that humans will themselves evolve into machine form. This study argues that fundamental change in human organizations will occur even as non-sentient AI (intelligent tools) becomes increasingly adept at tasks traditionally done by human "knowledge workers." For this study, therefore, AI is described as an evolving species of machine that can work autonomously to assist or replace human intellectual effort. A key question addressed in this study is whether organizations will use intelligent tools to assist human knowledge workers or replace workers as the competence of intelligent tools supersedes those of human counterparts.; Discussions with NASA officials suggest that all development of AI at the Agency is "human centered," whereby intelligent tools will function in "partnership" with humans. As the reliability of intelligent tools increases, AI will relieve humans from mundane and repetitious work, thus raising the sophistication of human productivity. Trends in other organizations-as evidenced by "lights out factories," for instance-indicate that AI could generate redundancies amongst human workers, particularly lesser skilled ones. Thus, as a consequence, domestic use of highly efficient intelligent tools for production of goods and services could eliminate the appeal of outsourcing work to low wage-, or slave-wage labor overseas. |
