back to indexKeoki Jackson: Lockheed Martin | Lex Fridman Podcast #33
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The following is a conversation with Keoki Jackson.
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He's the CTO of Lockheed Martin,
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a company that through its long history
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has created some of the most incredible engineering marvels
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human beings have ever built,
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including planes that fly fast and undetected,
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defense systems that intersect nuclear threats
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that can take the lives of millions,
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and systems that venture out into space,
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the moon, Mars, and beyond.
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And these days, more and more artificial intelligence
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has an assistive role to play in these systems.
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I've read several books in preparation for this conversation.
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It is a difficult one,
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because in part Lockheed Martin builds military systems
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that operate in a complicated world
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that often does not have easy solutions
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in the gray area between good and evil.
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I hope one day this world will rid itself of war
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But the path to achieving that in a world
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that does have evil is not obvious.
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What is obvious is good engineering
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and artificial intelligence research
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has a role to play on the side of good.
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Lockheed Martin and the rest of our community
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are hard at work at exactly this task.
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We talk about these and other important topics
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in this conversation.
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Also, most certainly, both Keoki and I
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have a passion for space,
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us humans venturing out toward the stars.
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We talk about this exciting future as well.
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This is the Artificial Intelligence Podcast.
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If you enjoy it, subscribe on YouTube,
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give it five stars on iTunes, support it on Patreon,
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or simply connect with me on Twitter at Lex Friedman,
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spelled F R I D M A N.
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And now, here's my conversation with Keoki Jackson.
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I read several books on Lockheed Martin recently.
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My favorite in particular is by Ben Rich,
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Carlos Concord's personal memoir.
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It gets a little edgy at times.
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But from that, I was reminded that the engineers
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at Lockheed Martin have created some of the most
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incredible engineering marvels human beings have ever built
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throughout the 20th century and the 21st.
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Do you remember a particular project or system at Lockheed
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or before that at the Space Shuttle Columbia
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that you were just in awe at the fact that us humans
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could create something like this?
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You know, that's a great question.
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There's a lot of things that I could draw on there.
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When you look at the Skunk Works and Ben Rich's book
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in particular, of course, it starts off with basically
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the start of the jet age and the P 80.
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And I had the opportunity to sit next to one
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of the Apollo astronauts, Charlie Duke, recently at dinner.
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And I said, hey, what's your favorite aircraft?
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And he said, well, it was by far the F 104 Starfighter,
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which was another aircraft that came out of Lockheed there.
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It was the first Mach 2 jet fighter aircraft.
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They called it the missile with a man in it.
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And so those are the kinds of things I grew up hearing
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You know, of course, the SR 71 is incomparable
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as kind of the epitome of speed, altitude,
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and just the coolest looking aircraft ever.
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So there's a reconnaissance, that's a plane.
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That's a, yeah, intelligence surveillance
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and reconnaissance aircraft that was designed
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to be able to outrun, basically go faster
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than any air defense system.
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But, you know, I'll tell you, I'm a space junkie.
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That's why I came to MIT.
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That's really what took me ultimately to Lockheed Martin.
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And I grew up, and so Lockheed Martin, for example,
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has been essentially at the heart of every planetary mission,
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like all the Mars missions we've had a part in.
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And we've talked a lot about the 50th anniversary
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of Apollo here in the last couple of weeks, right?
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But remember, 1976, July 20th, again, National Space Days,
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the landing of the Viking lander on the surface of Mars,
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just a huge accomplishment.
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And when I was a young engineer at Lockheed Martin,
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I got to meet engineers who had designed, you know,
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various pieces of that mission as well.
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So that's what I grew up on is these planetary missions,
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the start of the space shuttle era,
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and ultimately had the opportunity
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to see Lockheed Martin's part.
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Lockheed Martin's part, and we can maybe talk about
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some of these here, but Lockheed Martin's part
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in all of these space journeys over the years.
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Do you dream, and I apologize for getting philosophical
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at times, or sentimental.
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I do romanticize the notion of space exploration.
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So do you dream of the day when us humans colonize
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another planet like Mars, or a man, a woman,
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a human being steps on Mars?
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Absolutely, and that's a personal dream of mine.
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I haven't given up yet on my own opportunity
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to fly into space, but as, you know,
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from the Lockheed Martin perspective,
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this is something that we're working towards every day.
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And of course, you know, we're building
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the Orion spacecraft, which is the most sophisticated
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human rated spacecraft ever built.
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And it's really designed for these deep space journeys,
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you know, starting with the moon,
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but ultimately going to Mars and being the platform,
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you know, from a design perspective,
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we call the Mars base camp to be able to take humans
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to the surface, and then after a mission
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of a couple of weeks, bring them back up safely.
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And so that is something I want to see happen
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during my time at Lockheed Martin.
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So I'm pretty excited about that.
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And I think, you know, once we prove that's possible,
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you know, colonization might be a little bit further out,
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but it's something that I'd hope to see.
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So maybe you can give a little bit of an overview
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of, so Lockheed Martin has partnered with a few years ago
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with Boeing to work with the DOD and NASA
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to build launch systems and rockets with the ULA.
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What's beyond that?
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What's Lockheed's mission timeline,
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long term dream in terms of space?
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You mentioned the moon, I've heard you talk about asteroids.
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As Mars, what's the timeline?
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What's the engineering challenges
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and what's the dream long term?
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Yeah, I think the dream long term is to have
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a permanent presence in space beyond low earth orbit,
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ultimately with a long term presence on the moon
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and then to the planets, to Mars.
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And... Sorry to interrupt on that.
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So long term presence means...
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Sustained and sustainable presence in an economy,
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a space economy that really goes alongside that.
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With human beings and being able to launch perhaps
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from those, so like hop?
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You know, there's a lot of energy
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that goes in those hops, right?
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So I think the first step is being able to get there
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and to be able to establish sustained bases, right?
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And build from there.
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And a lot of that means getting, as you know,
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things like the cost of launch down
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and you mentioned United Launch Alliance.
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And so I don't wanna speak for ULA,
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but obviously they're working really hard
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to on their next generation of launch vehicles
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to maintain that incredible mission success record
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that ULA has, but ultimately continue
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to drive down the cost and make the flexibility,
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the speed and the access ever greater.
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So what's the missions that are in the horizon
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that you could talk to?
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Is there a hope to get to the moon?
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Absolutely, absolutely.
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I mean, I think you know this, or you may know this,
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there's a lot of ways to accomplish some of these goals.
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And so that's a lot of what's in discussion today.
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But ultimately the goal is to be able to establish a base
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essentially in cislunar space that would allow
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for ready transfer from orbit to the lunar surface
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And so that's sort of that near term,
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I say near term in the next decade or so vision,
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starting off with a stated objective by this administration
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to get back to the moon in the 2024, 2025 timeframe,
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which is right around the corner here.
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How big of an engineering challenge is that?
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I think the big challenge is not so much to go,
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but to stay, right?
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And so we demonstrated in the 60s
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that you could send somebody up,
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do a couple of days of mission
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and bring them home again successfully.
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Now we're talking about doing that,
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I'd say more to, I don't wanna say an industrial scale,
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but a sustained scale, right?
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So permanent habitation, regular reuse of vehicles,
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the infrastructure to get things like fuel, air,
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consumables, replacement parts,
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all the things that you need to sustain
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that kind of infrastructure.
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So those are certainly engineering challenges,
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there are budgetary challenges,
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and those are all things
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that we're gonna have to work through.
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The other thing, and I shouldn't,
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I don't wanna minimize this,
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I mean, I'm excited about human exploration,
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but the reality is our technology
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and where we've come over the last 40 years essentially
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has changed what we can do with robotic exploration as well.
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And to me, it's incredibly thrilling,
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and this seems like old news now,
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but the fact that we have rovers driving around
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the surface of Mars and sending back data
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is just incredible.
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The fact that we have satellites in orbit around Mars
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that are collecting weather,
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they're looking at the terrain, they're mapping,
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all of these kinds of things on a continuous basis,
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that's incredible.
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And the fact that you got the time lag, of course,
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going to the planets,
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but you can effectively have virtual human presence there
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in a way that we have never been able to do before.
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And now with the advent of even greater processing power,
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better AI systems, better cognitive systems
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and decision systems,
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you put that together with the human piece
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and we've really opened up the solar system
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in a whole different way.
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And I'll give you an example, we've got OSIRIS REx,
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which is a mission to the asteroid Bennu.
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So the spacecraft is out there right now
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on basically a year mapping activity
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to map the entire surface of that asteroid in great detail.
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You know, all autonomously piloted, right?
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But the idea then that, and this is not too far away,
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it's got a sort of fancy vacuum cleaner with a bucket,
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it's gonna collect the sample off the asteroid
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and then send it back here to Earth.
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And so, you know, we have gone from sort of those
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tentative steps in the 70s, you know,
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early landings, video of the solar system
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to now we've sent spacecraft to Pluto,
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we have gone to comets and brought and intercepted comets,
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we've brought stardust, you know, material back.
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So that's, we've gone far
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and there's incredible opportunity to go even farther.
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So it seems quite crazy that this is even possible,
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that can you talk a little bit about
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what it means to orbit an asteroid
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and with a bucket to try to pick up some soil samples?
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Yeah, so part of it is just kind of the, you know,
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these are the same kinds of techniques we use here on Earth
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for high speed, high accuracy imagery,
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stitching these scenes together and creating
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essentially high accuracy world maps, right?
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And so that's what we're doing, obviously,
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on a much smaller scale with an asteroid.
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But the other thing that's really interesting,
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you put together sort of that neat control
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and, you know, data and imagery problem.
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But the stories around how we designed the collection,
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I mean, as essentially, you know,
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this is the sort of the human ingenuity element, right?
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That, you know, essentially had an engineer who had a,
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one day he's like, oh, starts messing around with parts,
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vacuum cleaner, bucket, you know,
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maybe we could do something like this.
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And that was what led to what we call
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the pogo stick collection, right?
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Where basically a thing comes down,
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it's only there for seconds, does that collection,
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grabs the, essentially blows the regolith material
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into the collection hopper and off it goes.
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It doesn't really land almost.
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It's a very short landing.
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Wow, that's incredible.
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So what is, in those, we talked a little bit more
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about space, what's the role of the human in all of this?
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What are the challenges?
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What are the opportunities for humans
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as they pilot these vehicles in space?
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And for humans that may step foot
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on either the moon or Mars?
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Yeah, it's a great question because, you know,
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I just have been extolling the virtues of robotic
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and, you know, rovers, autonomous systems,
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and those absolutely have a role.
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I think the thing that we don't know how to replace today
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is the ability to adapt on the fly to new information.
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And I believe that will come, but we're not there yet.
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There's a ways to go.
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And so, you know, you think back to Apollo 13
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and the ingenuity of the folks on the ground
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and on the spacecraft essentially cobbled together
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a way to get the carbon dioxide scrubbers to work.
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Those are the kinds of things that ultimately, you know,
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and I'd say not just from dealing with anomalies,
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but, you know, dealing with new information.
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You see something and rather than waiting
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20 minutes or half an hour, an hour
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to try to get information back and forth,
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but be able to essentially revector on the fly,
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collect, you know, different samples,
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take a different approach,
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choose different areas to explore.
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Those are the kinds of things that human presence enables
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that is still a ways ahead of us on the AI side.
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Yeah, there's some interesting stuff
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we'll talk about on the teaming side here on Earth.
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That's pretty cool to explore.
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And in space, let's not leave the space piece out.
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So what does teaming, what does AI and humans
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working together in space look like?
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Yeah, one of the things we're working on
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is a system called Maya, which is,
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you think of it, so it's an AI assistant.
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In space. In space, exactly.
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And you think of it as the Alexa in space, right?
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But this goes hand in hand with a lot of other developments.
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And so today's world, everything is essentially model based,
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model based systems engineering
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to the actual digital tapestry that goes through the design,
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the build, the manufacture, the testing,
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and ultimately the sustainment of these system.
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And so our vision is really that, you know,
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when our astronauts are there around Mars,
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you're gonna have that entire digital library
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of the spacecraft, of its operations, all the test data,
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all the test data and flight data from previous missions
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to be able to look and see if there are anomalous conditions
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and tell the humans and potentially deal with that
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before it becomes a bad situation
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and help the astronauts work through those kinds of things.
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And it's not just, you know,
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dealing with problems as they come up,
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but also offering up opportunities
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for additional exploration capability, for example.
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So that's the vision is that, you know,
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these are gonna take the best of the human
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to respond to changing circumstances
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and rely on the best of AI capabilities
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to monitor these, you know,
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this almost infinite number of data points
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and correlations of data points
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that humans frankly aren't that good at.
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So how do you develop systems in space like this,
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whether it's Alexa in space or in general,
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any kind of control systems,
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any kind of intelligent systems
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when you can't really test stuff too much out in space?
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It's very expensive to test stuff.
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So how do you develop such systems?
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Yeah, that's the beauty of this digital twin, if you will.
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And of course, with Lockheed Martin,
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we've over the past, you know, five plus decades
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been refining our knowledge of the space environment,
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of how materials behave, dynamics,
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the controls, the radiation environments,
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all of these kinds of things.
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So we're able to create very sophisticated models.
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They're not perfect, but they're very good.
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And so you can actually do a lot.
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I spent part of my career, you know,
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simulating communication spacecraft,
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you know, missile warning spacecraft, GPS spacecraft
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in all kinds of scenarios and all kinds of environments.
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So this is really just taking that to the next level.
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The interesting thing is that now
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you're bringing into that loop
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a system depending on how it's developed
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that may be non deterministic,
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it may be learning as it goes.
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And in fact, we anticipate
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that it will be learning as it goes.
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And so that brings a whole new level of interest,
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I guess, into how do you do verification and validation
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of these non deterministic learning systems
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in scenarios that may go out of the bounds
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or the envelope that you have initially designed them to.
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So had this system and its intelligence
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has the same complexity,
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some of the same complexity human does
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and learns over time, it's unpredictable
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in certain kinds of ways in the,
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so you still, you also have to model that
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when you're thinking about it.
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So in your thoughts, it's possible
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to model the majority of situations,
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the important aspects of situations here on earth
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and in space enough to test stuff?
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Yeah, this is really an active area of research
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and we're actually funding university research
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in a variety of places, including MIT.
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This is in the realm of trust and verification
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and validation of I'd say autonomous systems in general
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and then as a subset of that autonomous systems
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that incorporate artificial intelligence capabilities.
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And this is not an easy problem.
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We're working with startup companies,
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we've got internal R&D, but our conviction is
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that autonomy and more and more AI enabled autonomy
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is gonna be in everything that Lockheed Martin develops
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and fields and it's gonna be retrofitting it.
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Autonomy and AI are gonna be retrofit
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into existing systems, they're gonna be part
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of the design for all of our future systems.
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And so maybe I should take a step back
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and say the way we define autonomy.
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So we talk about autonomy essentially a system
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that composes, selects and then executes decisions
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with varying levels of human intervention.
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And so you could think of no autonomy.
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So this is essentially the human doing the task.
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You can think of effectively partial autonomy
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where the human is in the loop.
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So making decisions in every case
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about what the autonomous system can do.
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Either in the cockpit or remotely.
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Or remotely, exactly, but still in that control loop.
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And then there's what you'd call supervisory autonomy.
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So the autonomous system is doing most of the work,
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the human can intervene to stop it
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or to change the direction.
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And then ultimately full autonomy
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where the human is off the loop altogether.
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And for different types of missions
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wanna have different levels of autonomy.
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So now take that spectrum and this conviction
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that autonomy and more and more AI
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are in everything that we develop.
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The kinds of things that Lockheed Martin does,
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a lot of times are safety of life critical kinds of missions.
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You think about aircraft, for example.
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And so we require and our customers require
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an extremely high level of confidence.
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One, that we're gonna protect life.
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Two, that these systems will behave
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in ways that their operators can understand.
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And so this gets into that whole field.
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Again, being able to verify and validate
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that the systems have been and that they will operate
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the way they're designed and the way they're expected.
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And furthermore, that they will do that
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in ways that can be explained and understood.
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And that is an extremely difficult challenge.
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Yeah, so here's a difficult question.
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I don't mean to bring this up,
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but I think it's a good case study
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that people are familiar with the Boeing 737 Max
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commercial airplane has had two recent crashes
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where their flight control software system failed
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and it's software.
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So I don't mean to speak about Boeing,
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but broadly speaking, we have this
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in the autonomous vehicle space too, semi autonomous.
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We have millions of lines of code software making decisions.
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There is a little bit of a clash of cultures
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because software engineers don't have the same culture
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of safety often that people who build systems
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like at Lockheed Martin do where it has to be
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exceptionally safe, you have to test this on.
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So how do we get this right when software
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is making so many decisions?
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Yeah, and there's a lot of things that have to happen.
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And by and large, I think it starts with the culture,
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which is not necessarily something that A,
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is taught in school or B is something that would come,
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depending on what kind of software you're developing,
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it may not be relevant, right?
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If you're targeting ads or something like that.
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So, and by and large, I'd say not just Lockheed Martin,
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but certainly the aerospace industry as a whole
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has developed a culture that does focus on safety,
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safety of life, operational safety, mission success.
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But as you note, these systems
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have gotten incredibly complex.
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And so they're to the point where it's almost impossible,
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you know, state spaces become so huge
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that it's impossible to, or very difficult
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to do a systematic verification across the entire set
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of potential ways that an aircraft could be flown,
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all the conditions that could happen,
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all the potential failure scenarios.
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Now, maybe that's soluble one day,
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maybe when we have our quantum computers
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at our fingertips, we'll be able to actually
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simulate across an entire, you know,
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almost infinite state space.
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But today, you know, there's a lot of work
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to really try to bound the system,
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to make sure that it behaves in predictable ways,
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and then have this culture of continuous inquiry
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and skepticism and questioning to say,
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did we really consider the right realm of possibilities?
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Have we done the right range of testing?
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Do we really understand, you know, in this case,
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you know, human and machine interactions,
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the human decision process alongside the machine processes?
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And so that's that culture,
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we call it the culture of mission success at Lockheed Martin
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that really needs to be established.
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And it's not something, you know,
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it's something that people learn by living in it.
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And it's something that has to be promulgated, you know,
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and it's done, you know, from the highest levels
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at a company of Lockheed Martin, like Lockheed Martin.
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Yeah, and the same is being faced
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at certain autonomous vehicle companies
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where that culture is not there
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because it started mostly by software engineers.
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So that's what they're struggling with.
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Is there lessons that you think we should learn
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as an industry and a society from the Boeing 737 MAX crashes?
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These crashes obviously are tremendous tragedies.
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They're tragedies for all of the people,
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the crew, the families, the passengers,
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the people on the ground involved.
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And, you know, it's also a huge business
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and economic setback as well.
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I mean, you know, we've seen that it's impacting
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essentially the trade balance of the US.
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So these are important questions.
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And these are the kinds that, you know,
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we've seen similar kinds of questioning at times.
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You know, you go back to the Challenger accident.
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And it is, I think, always important to remind ourselves
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that humans are fallible, that the systems we create,
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as perfect as we strive to make them,
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we can always make them better.
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And so another element of that culture of mission success
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is really that commitment to continuous improvement.
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If there's something that goes wrong,
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a real commitment to root cause
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and true root cause understanding,
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to taking the corrective actions
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and to making the future systems better.
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And certainly we strive for, you know, no accidents.
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And if you look at the record
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of the commercial airline industry as a whole
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and the commercial aircraft industry as a whole,
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you know, there's a very nice decaying exponential
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to years now where we have
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no commercial aircraft accidents at all, right?
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Fatal accidents at all.
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So that didn't happen by accident.
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It was through the regulatory agencies, FAA,
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the airframe manufacturers really working on a system
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to identify root causes and drive them out.
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So maybe we can take a step back
link |
and many people are familiar, but Lockheed Martin broadly,
link |
what kind of categories of systems
link |
are you involved in building?
link |
You know, Lockheed Martin, we think of ourselves
link |
as a company that solves hard mission problems.
link |
And the output of that might be an airplane or a spacecraft
link |
or a helicopter or a radar or something like that.
link |
But ultimately we're driven by these, you know,
link |
what is our customer?
link |
What is that mission that they need to achieve?
link |
And so that's what drove the SR71, right?
link |
How do you get pictures of a place
link |
where you've got sophisticated air defense systems
link |
that are capable of handling any aircraft
link |
that was out there at the time, right?
link |
So that, you know, that's what yielded an SR71.
link |
Let's build a nice flying camera.
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And make sure it gets out and it gets back, right?
link |
And that led ultimately to really the start
link |
of the space program in the US as well.
link |
So now take a step back to Lockheed Martin of today.
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And we are, you know, on the order of 105 years old now
link |
between Lockheed and Martin, the two big heritage companies.
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Of course, we're made up of a whole bunch
link |
of other companies that came in as well.
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General Dynamics, you know, kind of go down the list.
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Today, you can think of us in this space
link |
of solving mission problems.
link |
So obviously on the aircraft side, tactical aircraft,
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building the most advanced fighter aircraft
link |
that the world has ever seen.
link |
We're up to now several hundred of those delivered,
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building almost a hundred a year.
link |
And of course, working on the things that come after that.
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On the space side, we are engaged
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in pretty much every venue of space utilization
link |
and exploration you can imagine.
link |
So I mentioned things like navigation and timing GPS,
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communication satellites, missile warning satellites.
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We've built commercial surveillance satellites.
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We've built commercial communication satellites.
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We do civil space.
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So everything from human exploration
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to the robotic exploration of the outer planets.
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And keep going on the space front.
link |
But a couple of other areas that I'd like to put out,
link |
we're heavily engaged in building
link |
critical defensive systems.
link |
And so a couple that I'll mention, the Aegis Combat System.
link |
This is basically the integrated air and missile defense
link |
system for the US and allied fleets.
link |
And so protects carrier strike groups, for example,
link |
from incoming ballistic missile threats,
link |
aircraft threats, cruise missile threats,
link |
and kind of go down the list.
link |
So the carriers, the fleet itself
link |
is the thing that is being protected.
link |
The carriers aren't serving
link |
as a protection for something else.
link |
Well, that's a little bit of a different application.
link |
We've actually built the version called Aegis Ashore,
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which is now deployed in a couple of places around the world.
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So that same technology, I mean, basically can be used
link |
to protect either an ocean going fleet
link |
or a land based activity.
link |
Another one, the THAAD program.
link |
So THAAD, this is the Theater High Altitude Area Defense.
link |
This is to protect relatively broad areas
link |
against sophisticated ballistic missile threats.
link |
And so now it's deployed with a lot of US capabilities.
link |
And now we have international customers
link |
that are looking to buy that capability as well.
link |
And so these are systems that defend,
link |
not just defend militaries and military capabilities,
link |
but defend population areas.
link |
We saw maybe the first public use of these
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back in the first Gulf War with the Patriot Systems.
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And these are the kinds of things
link |
that Lockheed Martin delivers.
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And there's a lot of stuff that goes into it.
link |
A lot of stuff that goes with it.
link |
So think about the radar systems and the sensing systems
link |
that cue these, the command and control systems
link |
that decide how you pair a weapon
link |
against an incoming threat.
link |
And then all the human and machine interfaces
link |
to make sure that they can be operated successfully
link |
in very strenuous environments.
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Yeah, there's some incredible engineering
link |
that at every front, like you said.
link |
So maybe if we just take a look at Lockheed history broadly,
link |
maybe even looking at Skunk Works.
link |
What are the biggest,
link |
most impressive milestones of innovation?
link |
So if you look at stealth, I would have called you crazy
link |
if you said that's possible at the time.
link |
And supersonic and hypersonic.
link |
So traveling at, first of all,
link |
traveling at the speed of sound is pretty damn fast.
link |
And supersonic and hypersonic,
link |
three, four, five times the speed of sound.
link |
That seems, I would also call you crazy
link |
if you say you can do that.
link |
So can you tell me how it's possible
link |
to do these kinds of things?
link |
And is there other milestones and innovation
link |
that's going on that you can talk about?
link |
Well, let me start on the Skunk Works saga.
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And you kind of alluded to it in the beginning.
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Skunk Works is as much an idea as a place.
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And so it's driven really by Kelly Johnson's 14 principles.
link |
And I'm not gonna list all 14 of them off,
link |
but the idea, and this I'm sure will resonate
link |
with any engineer who's worked
link |
on a highly motivated small team before.
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The idea that if you can essentially have a small team
link |
of very capable people who wanna work
link |
on really hard problems, you can do almost anything.
link |
Especially if you kind of shield them
link |
from bureaucratic influences,
link |
if you create very tight relationships with your customers
link |
so that you have that team
link |
and shared vision with the customer.
link |
Those are the kinds of things that enable the Skunk Works
link |
to do these incredible things.
link |
And we listed off a number that you brought up stealth.
link |
And I wish I could have seen Ben Rich with a ball bearing
link |
rolling it across the desk to a general officer
link |
and saying, would you like to have an aircraft
link |
that has the radar cross section of this ball bearing?
link |
Probably one of the least expensive
link |
and most effective marketing campaigns
link |
in the history of the industry.
link |
So just for people that are not familiar,
link |
the way you detect aircraft,
link |
I'm sure there's a lot of ways,
link |
but radar for the longest time,
link |
there's a big blob that appears in the radar.
link |
How do you make a plane disappear
link |
so it looks as big as a ball bearing?
link |
What's involved in technology wise there?
link |
What's the broadly sort of the stuff you can speak about?
link |
I'll stick to what's in Ben Rich's book.
link |
But obviously the geometry of how radar gets reflected
link |
and the kinds of materials that either reflect or absorb
link |
are kind of the couple of the critical elements there.
link |
And it's a cat and mouse game, right?
link |
I mean, you know, radars get better,
link |
stealth capabilities get better.
link |
And so it's a really a game
link |
of continuous improvement and innovation there.
link |
I'll leave it at that.
link |
Yeah, so the idea that something is essentially invisible
link |
is quite fascinating.
link |
But the other one is flying fast.
link |
So speed of sound is 750, 60 miles an hour.
link |
So supersonic is three, you know, Mach three,
link |
something like that.
link |
Yeah, we talk about the supersonic obviously,
link |
and we kind of talk about that as that realm from Mach one
link |
up through about Mach five and then hypersonic.
link |
So, you know, high supersonic speeds would be past Mach five.
link |
And you got to remember Lockheed Martin
link |
and actually other companies have been involved
link |
in hypersonic development since the late 60s.
link |
You know, you think of everything from the X 15
link |
to the space shuttle as examples of that.
link |
I think the difference now is if you look around the world,
link |
particularly the threat environment that we're in today,
link |
you're starting to see, you know, publicly,
link |
folks like the Russians and the Chinese
link |
saying they have hypersonic weapons capability
link |
that could threaten US and allied capabilities.
link |
And also basically, you know, the claims are
link |
these could get around defensive systems
link |
that are out there today.
link |
And so there's a real sense of urgency.
link |
You hear it from folks like the undersecretary of defense
link |
for research and engineering, Dr. Mike Griffin,
link |
and others in the department of defense that hypersonics
link |
is something that's really important to the nation
link |
in terms of both parity, but also defensive capabilities.
link |
And so that's something that, you know, we're pleased.
link |
It's something that Lockheed Martin's, you know,
link |
had a heritage in, we've invested R and D dollars
link |
on our side for many years.
link |
And we have a number of things going on
link |
with various US government customers in that field today
link |
that we're very excited about.
link |
So I would anticipate we'll be hearing more about that
link |
in the future from our customers.
link |
And I've actually haven't read much about this.
link |
Probably you can't talk about much of it at all,
link |
but on the defensive side,
link |
it's a fascinating problem of perception
link |
of trying to detect things that are really hard to see.
link |
Can you comment on how hard that problem is
link |
and how hard is it to stay ahead,
link |
even if we go back a few decades,
link |
stay ahead of the competition?
link |
Well, maybe I'd, again, you gotta think of these
link |
as ongoing capability development.
link |
And so think back to the early days of missile defense.
link |
So this would be in the 80s, the SDI program.
link |
And in that timeframe, we proved and Lockheed Martin proved
link |
that you could hit a bullet with a bullet, essentially,
link |
and which is something that had never been done before
link |
to take out an incoming ballistic missile.
link |
And so that's led to these incredible hit to kill
link |
kinds of capabilities, PAC 3.
link |
That's the Patriot Advanced Capability Model 3
link |
that Lockheed Martin builds,
link |
the THAAD system that I talked about.
link |
So now hypersonics, they're different from ballistic systems.
link |
And so we gotta take the next step in defensive capability.
link |
I can, I'll leave that there, but I can only imagine.
link |
Now, let me just comment sort of as an engineer,
link |
it's sad to know that so much that Lockheed has done
link |
in the past is classified or today,
link |
and it's shrouded in secrecy.
link |
It has to be by the nature of the application.
link |
So like what I do, so what we do here at MIT,
link |
we would like to inspire young engineers, young scientists,
link |
and yet in the Lockheed case,
link |
some of that engineer has to stay quiet.
link |
How do you think about that?
link |
How does that make you feel?
link |
Is there a future where more can be shown
link |
or is it just the nature of this world
link |
that it has to remain secret?
link |
It's a good question.
link |
I think the public can see enough of,
link |
and including students who may be in grade school,
link |
high school, college today,
link |
to understand the kinds of really hard problems
link |
And I mean, look at the F35, right?
link |
And obviously a lot of the detailed performance levels
link |
are sensitive and controlled.
link |
But we can talk about what an incredible aircraft this is,
link |
supersonic, super cruise, kind of a fighter,
link |
stealth capabilities.
link |
It's a flying information system in the sky
link |
with data fusion, sensor fusion capabilities
link |
that have never been seen before.
link |
So these are the kinds of things that I believe,
link |
these are the kinds of things that got me excited
link |
when I was a student.
link |
I think these still inspire students today.
link |
And the other thing I'd say,
link |
I mean, people are inspired by space.
link |
People are inspired by aircraft.
link |
Our employees are also inspired by that sense of mission.
link |
And I'll just give you an example.
link |
I had the privilege to work
link |
and lead our GPS programs for some time.
link |
And that was a case where I actually worked on a program
link |
that touches billions of people every day.
link |
And so when I said, I worked on GPS,
link |
everybody knew what I was talking about,
link |
even though they didn't maybe appreciate
link |
the technical challenges that went into that.
link |
But I'll tell you, I got a briefing one time
link |
from a major in the Air Force.
link |
And he said, I go by callsign GIMP, GPS is my passion.
link |
And he was involved in the operational test of the system.
link |
And he said, I was out in Iraq,
link |
and I was on a helicopter, Blackhawk helicopter,
link |
and I was bringing back a sergeant
link |
and a handful of troops from a deployed location.
link |
And he said, my job is GPS.
link |
So I asked that sergeant,
link |
and he's beaten down and kind of half asleep.
link |
And I said, what do you think about GPS?
link |
And he brightened up, his eyes lit up,
link |
and he said, well, GPS,
link |
that brings me and my troops home every day.
link |
And that's the kind of story where it's like,
link |
okay, I'm really making a difference here
link |
in the kind of work.
link |
So that mission piece is really important.
link |
The last thing I'll say is,
link |
and this gets to some of these questions
link |
around advanced technologies.
link |
It's not, they're not just airplanes
link |
and spacecraft anymore.
link |
For people who are excited
link |
about advanced software capabilities,
link |
about AI, about bringing machine learning,
link |
these are the things that we're doing
link |
to exponentially increase the mission capabilities
link |
that go on those platforms.
link |
And those are the kinds of things
link |
that I think are more and more visible to the public.
link |
Yeah, I think autonomy, especially in flight,
link |
is super exciting.
link |
Do you see a day, here we go, back into philosophy,
link |
future when most fighter jets
link |
will be highly autonomous to a degree
link |
where a human doesn't need to be in the cockpit
link |
in almost all cases?
link |
Well, I mean, that's a world
link |
that to a certain extent we're in today.
link |
Now these are remotely piloted aircraft, to be sure.
link |
But we have hundreds of thousands of flight hours a year now
link |
in remotely piloted aircraft.
link |
And then if you take the F35,
link |
there are huge layers, I guess,
link |
in levels of autonomy built into that aircraft
link |
so that the pilot is essentially more of a mission manager
link |
rather than doing the data,
link |
the second to second elements of flying the aircraft.
link |
So in some ways it's the easiest aircraft
link |
in the world to fly.
link |
And kind of a funny story on that.
link |
So I don't know if you know
link |
how aircraft carrier landings work,
link |
but basically there's what's called a tail hook
link |
and it catches wires on the deck of the carrier.
link |
And that's what brings the aircraft
link |
to a screeching halt, right?
link |
And there's typically three of these wires.
link |
So if you miss the first, the second one,
link |
you catch the next one, right?
link |
And we got a little criticism.
link |
I don't know how true this story is,
link |
but we got a little criticism.
link |
The F35 is so perfect, it always gets the second wires.
link |
We're wearing out the wire because it always hits that one.
link |
But that's the kind of autonomy that just makes these,
link |
essentially up levels what the human is doing
link |
to more of that mission manager.
link |
So much of that landing by the F35 is autonomous.
link |
Well, it's just, the control systems are such
link |
that you really have dialed out the variability
link |
that comes with all the environmental conditions.
link |
You're wearing it out.
link |
So my point is to a certain extent,
link |
that world is here today.
link |
Do I think that we're gonna see a day anytime soon
link |
when there are no humans in the cockpit?
link |
I don't believe that.
link |
But I do think we're gonna see much more
link |
human machine teaming, and we're gonna see that much more
link |
at the tactical edge.
link |
And we did a demo, and you asked about
link |
what the Skunk Works is doing these days.
link |
And so this is something I can talk about,
link |
but we did a demo with the Air Force Research Laboratory.
link |
We called it Have Raider.
link |
And so using an F16 as an autonomous wingman,
link |
and we demonstrated all kinds of maneuvers
link |
and various mission scenarios with the autonomous F16
link |
being that so called loyal or trusted wingman.
link |
And so those are the kinds of things that,
link |
we've shown what is possible now.
link |
Given that you've up leveled that pilot
link |
to be a mission manager, now they can control
link |
multiple other aircraft.
link |
Think of them almost as extensions of your own aircraft
link |
flying alongside with you.
link |
So that's another example of how this is really
link |
coming to fruition.
link |
And then I mentioned the landings,
link |
but think about just the implications for humans
link |
and flight safety, and this goes a little bit back
link |
to the discussion we were having about
link |
how do you continuously improve the level of safety
link |
through automation while working through the complexities
link |
that automation introduces.
link |
So one of the challenges that you have
link |
in high performance fighter aircraft is what's called G lock.
link |
So this is G induced loss of consciousness.
link |
So you pull nine Gs, you're wearing a pressure suit,
link |
that's not enough to keep the blood going to your brain,
link |
And of course that's bad if you happen to be flying low,
link |
near the deck and in an obstacle or terrain environment.
link |
And so we developed a system in our aeronautics division
link |
called Auto Gcast, so autonomous ground collision
link |
And we built that into the F16.
link |
It's actually saved seven aircraft, eight pilots already
link |
in a relatively short time it's been deployed.
link |
It was so successful that the Air Force said,
link |
hey, we need to have this in the F35 right away.
link |
So we've actually done testing of that now on the F35.
link |
And we've also integrated an autonomous
link |
air collision avoidance system.
link |
So think the air to air problem.
link |
So now it's the integrated collision avoidance system.
link |
But these are the kinds of capabilities,
link |
I wouldn't call them AI.
link |
I mean, they're very sophisticated models
link |
of the aircraft dynamics coupled with the terrain models
link |
to be able to predict when essentially the pilot
link |
is doing something that is gonna take the aircraft
link |
or the pilot's not doing something in this case.
link |
But it just gives you an example of how autonomy
link |
can be really a lifesaver in today's world.
link |
It's like a autonomous automated emergency braking in cars.
link |
But is there any exploration of perception of,
link |
for example, detecting a G lock that the pilot is out?
link |
So as opposed to perceiving the external environment
link |
to infer that the pilot is out,
link |
but actually perceiving the pilot directly.
link |
Yeah, this is one of those cases
link |
where you'd like to not take action
link |
if you think the pilot's there.
link |
And it's almost like systems that try to detect
link |
if a driver's falling asleep on the road, right?
link |
With limited success.
link |
So, I mean, this is what I call
link |
the system of last resort, right?
link |
Where if the aircraft has determined
link |
that it's going into the terrain, get it out of there.
link |
And this is not something that we're just doing
link |
in the aircraft world.
link |
And I wanted to highlight,
link |
we have a technology we call Matrix,
link |
but this is developed at Sikorsky Innovations.
link |
The whole idea there is what we call optimal piloting.
link |
So not optional piloting or unpiloted, but optimal piloting.
link |
So an FAA certified system.
link |
So you have a high degree of confidence.
link |
It's generally pretty deterministic.
link |
So we know that it'll do in different situations,
link |
but effectively be able to fly a mission
link |
with two pilots, one pilot, no pilots.
link |
And you can think of it almost as like a dial
link |
of the level of autonomy that you want,
link |
but able, so it's running in the background at all times
link |
and able to pick up tasks,
link |
whether it's sort of autopilot kinds of tasks
link |
or more sophisticated path planning kinds of activities
link |
to be able to do things like, for example,
link |
land on an oil rig in the North Sea
link |
in bad weather, zero, zero conditions.
link |
And you can imagine, of course,
link |
there's a lot of military utility to capability like that.
link |
You could have an aircraft that you want to send out
link |
for a crewed mission, but then at night,
link |
if you want to use it to deliver supplies
link |
in an unmanned mode, that could be done as well.
link |
And so there's clear advantages there.
link |
But think about on the commercial side,
link |
if you're an aircraft taken,
link |
you're gonna fly out to this oil rig.
link |
If you get out there and you can't land,
link |
then you gotta bring all those people back,
link |
reschedule another flight,
link |
pay the overtime for the crew that you just brought back
link |
because they didn't get where they were going,
link |
pay for the overtime for the folks
link |
that are out there in the oil rig.
link |
This is real economic,
link |
these are dollars and cents kinds of advantages
link |
we're bringing in the commercial world as well.
link |
So here's a difficult question from the AI space
link |
that I would love it if you're able to comment.
link |
So a lot of this autonomy in AI you've mentioned just now
link |
has this empowering effect.
link |
One is the last resort, it keeps you safe.
link |
The other is there's a, with the teaming
link |
and in general, assistive AI.
link |
And I think there's always a race.
link |
So the world is full of, the world is complex.
link |
It's full of bad actors.
link |
So there's often a race to make sure
link |
that we keep this country safe, right?
link |
But with AI, there is a concern
link |
that it's a slightly different race.
link |
Though there's a lot of people in the AI space
link |
that are concerned about the AI arms race.
link |
That as opposed to the United States becoming,
link |
having the best technology and therefore keeping us safe,
link |
even we lose ability to keep control of it.
link |
So this, the AI arms race getting away
link |
from all of us humans.
link |
So do you share this worry?
link |
Do you share this concern
link |
when we're talking about military applications
link |
that too much control and decision making capabilities
link |
giving to software or AI?
link |
Well, I don't see it happening today.
link |
And in fact, this is something from a policy perspective,
link |
it's obviously a very dynamic space,
link |
but the Department of Defense has put quite a bit
link |
of thought into that.
link |
And maybe before talking about the policy,
link |
I'll just talk about some of the why.
link |
And you alluded to it being a sort of a complicated
link |
and a little bit scary world out there,
link |
but there's some big things happening today.
link |
You hear a lot of talk now about a return
link |
to great powers competition,
link |
particularly around China and Russia with the US,
link |
but there are some other big players out there as well.
link |
And what we've seen is the deployment of some very,
link |
I'd say concerning new weapon systems,
link |
particularly with Russia and breaching
link |
Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile Treaties,
link |
that's been in the news a lot.
link |
The building of islands, artificial islands
link |
in the South China Sea by the Chinese
link |
and then arming those islands.
link |
The annexation of Crimea by Russia,
link |
the invasion of Ukraine.
link |
So there's some pretty scary things.
link |
And then you add on top of that,
link |
the North Korean threat has certainly not gone away.
link |
There's a lot going on in the Middle East
link |
with Iran in particular.
link |
And we see this global terrorism threat has not abated.
link |
So there are a lot of reasons to look for technology
link |
to assist with those problems,
link |
whether it's AI or other technologies like hypersonics,
link |
which we discussed.
link |
So now let me give just a couple of hypotheticals.
link |
So people react sort of in the second timeframe, right?
link |
Photon hitting your eye to movement
link |
is on the order of a few tenths of a second
link |
kinds of processing time.
link |
computers are operating in the nanosecond timescale, right?
link |
So just to bring home what that means,
link |
a nanosecond to a second is like a second to 32 years.
link |
So seconds on the battlefield,
link |
in that sense, literally are lifetimes.
link |
And so if you can bring an autonomous
link |
or AI enabled capability
link |
that will enable the human to shrink,
link |
maybe you've heard the term the OODA loop.
link |
So this whole idea that a typical battlefield decision
link |
is characterized by observe.
link |
So information comes in, orient.
link |
How does that, what does that mean in the context?
link |
Decide, what do I do about it?
link |
And then act, take that action.
link |
If you can use these capabilities to compress that OODA loop
link |
to stay inside what your adversary is doing,
link |
that's an incredible powerful force on the battlefield.
link |
That's a really nice way to put it,
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that the role of AI and computing in general
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has a lot to benefit from just decreasing
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from 32 years to one second,
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as opposed to on the scale of seconds and minutes and hours
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making decisions that humans are better at making.
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And it actually goes the other way too.
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So that's on the short timescale.
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So humans kind of work in the one second,
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two seconds to eight hours.
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After eight hours, you get tired,
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you gotta go to the bathroom, whatever the case might be.
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So there's this whole range of other things.
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Think about surveillance and guarding facilities.
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Think about moving material, logistics, sustainment.
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A lot of these, what they call dull, dirty
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and dangerous things that you need
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to have sustained activity,
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but it's sort of beyond the length of time
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that a human can practically do as well.
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So there's this range of things that are critical
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in military and defense applications
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that AI and autonomy are particularly well suited to.
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Now, the interesting question that you brought up is,
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okay, how do you make sure that stays within human control?
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So that was the context for now the policy.
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And so there is a DOD directive called 3000.09
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because that's the way we name stuff in this world.
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But I'd say it's well worth reading.
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It's only a couple of pages long,
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but it makes some key points.
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And it's really around making sure
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that there's human agency and control
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over use of semi autonomous and autonomous weapons systems,
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making sure that these systems are tested,
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verified and evaluated in realistic,
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real world type scenarios,
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making sure that the people are actually trained
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on how to use them,
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making sure that the systems have human machine interfaces
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that can show what state they're in
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and what kinds of decisions they're making,
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making sure that you've established doctrine
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and tactics and techniques and procedures
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for the use of these kinds of systems.
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And so, and by the way, I mean, none of this is easy,
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but I'm just trying to lay kind of the picture
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of how the US has said,
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this is the way we're gonna treat AI and autonomous systems,
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that it's not a free for all.
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And like there are rules of war and rules of engagement
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with other kinds of systems,
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think chemical weapons, biological weapons,
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we need to think about the same sorts of implications.
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And this is something that's really important
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for Lockheed Martin.
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I mean, obviously we are a hundred percent complying
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with our customer and the policies and regulations,
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but I mean, AI is an incredible enabler,
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say within the walls of Lockheed Martin
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in terms of improving production efficiency,
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doing helping engineers, doing generative design,
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improving logistics, driving down energy costs.
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I mean, there are so many applications,
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but we're also very interested in some of the elements
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of ethical application within Lockheed Martin.
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So we need to make sure that things like privacy
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is taken care of, that we do everything we can
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to drive out bias in AI enabled kinds of systems,
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that we make sure that humans are involved in decisions,
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that we're not just delegating accountability to algorithms.
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And so for us, it all comes back,
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I talked about culture before,
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and it comes back to sort of the Lockheed Martin culture
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and our core values.
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And so it's pretty simple for us and do what's right,
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respect others, perform with excellence.
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And now how do we tie that back to the ethical principles
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will govern how AI is used within Lockheed Martin.
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And we actually have a world, pretty,
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so you might not know this,
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but there are actually awards for ethics programs.
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Lockheed Martin's had a recognized ethics program
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And this is one of the things that our ethics team
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is working with our engineering team on.
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One of the miracles to me, perhaps a layman,
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again, I was born in the Soviet Union.
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So I have echoes, at least in my family history
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of World War II and the Cold War.
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Do you have a sense of why human civilization
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has not destroyed itself through nuclear war,
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so nuclear deterrence?
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And thinking about the future,
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does this technology have a role to play here?
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And what is the long term future
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of nuclear deterrence look like?
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Yeah, this is one of those hard, hard questions.
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And I should note that Lockheed Martin is both proud
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and privileged to play a part in multiple legs
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of our nuclear and strategic deterrent systems
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like the Trident submarine launch ballistic missiles.
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You talk about, is there still a possibility
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that the human race could destroy itself?
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I'd say that possibility is real.
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But interestingly, in some sense,
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I think the strategic deterrence have prevented
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the kinds of incredibly destructive world wars
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that we saw in the first half of the 20th century.
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Now, things have gotten more complicated since that time
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and since the Cold War.
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It is more of a multipolar great powers world today.
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Just to give you an example, back then,
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there were, in the Cold War timeframe,
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just a handful of nations
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that had ballistic missile capability by last count.
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And this is a few years old.
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There's over 70 nations today that have that.
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Similar kinds of numbers
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in terms of space based capabilities.
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So the world has gotten more complex and more challenging
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and the threats, I think, have proliferated
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in ways that we didn't expect.
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The nation today is in the middle of a recapitalization
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of our strategic deterrent.
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I look at that as one of the most important things
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that our nation can do.
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What is involved in deterrence?
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Is it being ready to attack
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or is it the defensive systems that catch attacks?
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A little bit of both.
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And so it's a complicated game theoretical kind of program.
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we are trying to prevent the use of any of these weapons.
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And the theory behind prevention is that
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even if an adversary uses a weapon against you,
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you have the capability to essentially strike back
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and do harm to them that's unacceptable.
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And so that will deter them from making use
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of these weapons systems.
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The deterrence calculus has changed, of course,
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with more nations now having these kinds of weapons.
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But I think from my perspective, it's very important
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to maintain a strategic deterrent.
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You have to have systems that you know will work
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when they're required to work.
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Now you know that they have to be adaptable
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to a variety of different scenarios in today's world.
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And so that's what this recapitalization of systems
link |
that were built over previous decades,
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making sure that they are appropriate, not just for today,
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but for the decades to come.
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So the other thing I'd really like to note
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is strategic deterrence has a very different
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We used to think of weapons of mass destruction
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in terms of nuclear, chemical, biological.
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And today we have a cyber threat.
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We've seen examples of the use of cyber weaponry.
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And if you think about the possibilities
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of using cyber capabilities or an adversary attacking the US
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to take out things like critical infrastructure,
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electrical grids, water systems,
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those are scenarios that are strategic in nature
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to the survival of a nation as well.
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So that is the kind of world that we live in today.
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And part of my hope on this is one that we can also develop
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technical or technological systems,
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perhaps enabled by AI and autonomy,
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that will allow us to contain and to fight back
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against these kinds of new threats
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that were not conceived when we first developed
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our strategic deterrence.
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Yeah, I know that Lockheed is involved in cyber,
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so I saw that you mentioned that.
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It's an incredibly, nuclear almost seems easier than cyber
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because there's so many attack,
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there's so many ways that cyber can evolve
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in such an uncertain future.
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But talking about engineering with a mission,
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I mean, in this case that you're engineering systems
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that basically save the world.
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Well, like I said, we're privileged to work
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on some very challenging problems
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for very critical customers here in the US
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and with our allies abroad as well.
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Lockheed builds both military and nonmilitary systems.
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And perhaps the future of Lockheed
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may be more in nonmilitary applications
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if you talk about space and beyond.
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I say that as a preface to a difficult question.
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So President Eisenhower in 1961 in his farewell address
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talked about the military industrial complex
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and that it shouldn't grow beyond what is needed.
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So what are your thoughts on those words,
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on the military industrial complex,
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on the concern of growth of their developments
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beyond what may be needed?
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That where it may be needed is a critical phrase, of course.
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And I think it is worth pointing out, as you noted,
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that Lockheed Martin,
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we are in a number of commercial businesses
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from energy to space to commercial aircraft.
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And so I wouldn't neglect the importance
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of those parts of our business as well.
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I think the world is dynamic and there was a time,
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and it doesn't seem that long ago to me,
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it was while I was a graduate student here at MIT
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and we were talking about the peace dividend
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at the end of the Cold War.
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If you look at expenditure on military systems
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as a fraction of GDP,
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we're far below peak levels of the past.
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And to me, at least, it looks like a time
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where you're seeing global threats changing in a way
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that would warrant relevant investments
link |
in defensive capabilities.
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The other thing I'd note,
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for military and defensive systems,
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it's not quite a free market, right?
link |
We don't sell to people on the street.
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And that warrants a very close partnership
link |
between, I'd say, the customers and the people
link |
that design, build, and maintain these systems
link |
because of the very unique nature,
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the very difficult requirements,
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the very great importance on safety
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and on operating the way they're intended every time.
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And so that does create,
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and frankly, it's one of Lockheed Martin's great strengths
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is that we have this expertise built up over many years
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in partnership with our customers
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to be able to design and build these systems
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that meet these very unique mission needs.
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Yeah, because building those systems is very costly,
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there's very little room for mistake.
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I mean, it's, yeah, just Ben Rich's book and so on
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just tells the story.
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It's nerve wracking just reading it.
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If you're an engineer, it reads like a thriller.
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Okay, let me, let's go back to space for a second.
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I'm always happy to go back to space.
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So a few quick, maybe out there,
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maybe fun questions, maybe a little provocative.
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What are your thoughts on the efforts
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of the new folks, SpaceX and Elon Musk?
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What are your thoughts about what Elon is doing?
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Do you see him as competition?
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Do you enjoy competition?
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What are your thoughts?
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Yeah, first of all, certainly Elon,
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I'd say SpaceX and some of his other ventures
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are definitely a competitive force in the space industry.
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And do we like competition?
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And we think we're very strong competitors.
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I think it's, you know, competition is what the US
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is founded on in a lot of ways
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and always coming up with a better way.
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And I think it's really important
link |
to continue to have fresh eyes coming in, new innovation.
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I do think it's important to have level playing fields.
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And so you wanna make sure
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that you're not giving different requirements
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to different players.
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But, you know, I tell people, you know,
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I spent a lot of time at places like MIT.
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I'm gonna be at the MIT Beaverwork Summer Institute
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over the weekend here.
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And I tell people, this is the most exciting time
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to be in the space business in my entire life.
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And it is this explosion of new capabilities
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that have been driven by things like the, you know,
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the massive increase in computing power,
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things like the massive increase in comms capabilities,
link |
advanced and additive manufacturing
link |
are really bringing down the barriers to entry in this field
link |
and it's driving just incredible innovation.
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And it's happening at startups,
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but it's also happening at Lockheed Martin.
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You may not realize this, but Lockheed Martin,
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working with Stanford actually built the first CubeSat
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that was launched here out of the US
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that was called QuakeSat.
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And we did that with Stellar Solutions.
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This was right around just after 2000, I guess.
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And so we've been in that, you know,
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from the very beginning.
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And, you know, I talked about some of these,
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like, you know, Maya and Orion,
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but, you know, we're in the middle of what we call smartsats
link |
and software defined satellites
link |
that can essentially restructure and remap their purpose,
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their mission on orbit to give you almost, you know,
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unlimited flexibility for these satellites
link |
over their lifetimes.
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So those are just a couple of examples,
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but yeah, this is a great time to be in space.
link |
So Wright Brothers flew for the first time 116 years ago.
link |
So now we have supersonic stealth planes
link |
and all the technology we've talked about.
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What innovations, obviously you can't predict the future,
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but do you see Lockheed in the next 100 years?
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If you take that same leap,
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how will the world of technology and engineering change?
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I know it's an impossible question,
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but nobody could have predicted
link |
that we could even fly 120 years ago.
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So what do you think is the edge of possibility
link |
that we're going to be exploring in the next 100 years?
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I don't know that there is an edge.
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I, you know, we've been around
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for almost that entire time, right?
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The Lockheed brothers and Glen L. Martin
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starting their companies in the basement of a church
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and an old service station.
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We're very different companies today
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than we were back then, right?
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And that's because we've continuously reinvented ourselves
link |
over all of those decades.
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I think it's fair to say, I know this for sure,
link |
the world of the future, it's gonna move faster,
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it's gonna be more connected,
link |
it's gonna be more autonomous,
link |
and it's gonna be more complex than it is today.
link |
And so this is the world, you know,
link |
as a CTO at Lockheed Martin that I think about,
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what are the technologies that we have to invest in?
link |
Whether it's things like AI and autonomy,
link |
you know, you can think about quantum computing,
link |
which is an area that we've invested in
link |
to try to stay ahead of these technological changes,
link |
and frankly, some of the threats that are out there.
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I believe that we're gonna be out there in the solar system,
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that we're gonna be defending and defending well
link |
against probably, you know, military threats
link |
that nobody has even thought about today.
link |
We are going to be, we're gonna use these capabilities
link |
to have far greater knowledge of our own planet,
link |
the depths of the oceans, you know,
link |
all the way to the upper reaches of the atmosphere
link |
and everything out to the sun
link |
and to the edge of the solar system.
link |
So that's what I look forward to,
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and I'm excited, I mean, just looking ahead
link |
in the next decade or so to the steps
link |
that I see ahead of us in that time.
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I don't think there's a better place to end,
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Keoki, thank you so much.
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Lex, it's been a real pleasure,
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and sorry it took so long to get up here,
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but I'm glad we were able to make it happen.