When you’re describing your work at the intersection of space exploration and artificial intelligence, the explanation inevitably gets too technical for someone in the conversation.
Unfazed, Hunter Sandidge ’15 pivots to more relatable terms: “OK, have you ever seen ‘Iron Man’? …”
诚然,先生. Sandidge is a huge science-fiction fan who can pull from an extensive mental library of book and movie references. 但是小罗伯特·唐尼. didn’t teach him how to think on his feet and communicate with vastly different audiences. 博彩网址大全并.
Those are hallmarks of a broad-based education that has enabled Mr. Sandidge and the two fellow alumni he brought aboard at Collins Aerospace — Jackson Wehr ’18 and 雅各Werschey ’15 — to flourish in their groundbreaking work.
They’re using AI modeling to enhance life support systems on the International Space Station, 协助任务控制, and support other aspects of space exploration as NASA ramps up toward a return to human spaceflight.
This feature story first appeared in the Summer 2024 issue of The Carthaginian magazine.
柯林斯雇来的三个博彩网址大全人中，第一个. 桑迪奇于2016年开始在那里工作. 大约18个月前, he moved over to his current role as manager of data science and artificial intelligence engineering.
也许这不是Mr. 桑迪奇设想的学位是 金融 from Carthage (bachelor’s) and DePaul University (master’s) leading him, 但他很高兴能在那里.
“每天, 我们站在科幻和现实之间的边缘,他说, 我们在不断地改变这条路线.”
Thinking like a professional trader still comes in handy at unexpected times. Like when you need an algorithm that can automatically maintain a stable temperature in a spacesuit — and other approaches have led to dead ends.
“Instead, I treated the temperature in the suit like a stock price,” Mr. Sandidge解释说. “它的效果非常好.”
That’s just one of many useful tools available in a toolbox he started filling at Carthage. While some schools churn out students like hammers that are equipped to do a single task, Mr. 桑迪奇认为自己“更像是一把万能刀”.”
的内幕
了解“博彩网址大全毕业生的质量”后，他说. Sandidge recruited Jackson Wehr ’18 for an internship shortly after the 2018 alumnus became available.
在这三名队友中，奥巴马先生. 韦尔选择了一条最直接的航空事业之路. 他的专业是 物理 and was heavily involved in the College’s microgravity research with NASA, flying in zero-gravity to test fuel-gauging technology that’s now under consideration for future space missions.
Cognizant of the rare opportunity he has to stretch the limits of modern technology, he’s grateful that Carthage gave him the latitude to sharpen his problem-solving skills, 接受不熟悉的挑战, 甚至在公共场合讲话.
At one professional conference where other deep-in-the-weeds presentations elicited yawns, 一名教员注意到. 我们能吸引观众的注意力.
的关键? 假装你在和奶奶说话.
他补充道:“不是每个人都擅长技术。. “People skills take you a lot farther than anyone gives you credit for.”
Hunter Sandidge ’15 at the entrance to a Collins Aerospace facility in Windsor Locks, Connecticut.
翻译
令人惊讶的是, when these space-tech professionals reminisce about their favorite Carthage classes, 他们提出了哲学的基本问题, 宗教, 首先是文学. That might explain why the silly memes that 雅各Werschey ’15 shares are based on Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.
Mr. 韦尔奇和现在的上司，韦尔奇先生. Sandidge, have been buddies since freshman orientation, when they bonded over facial hair fails. 同事,虽然? 在很长一段时间里，这似乎不太可能.
Mr. Werschey在一个 日本主要, provided translation and cross-cultural programming in northern Japan for two years after graduation, and then continued his bilingual work at Hilton Hawaiian Village in Honolulu.
然后是新冠肺炎引发的职业转变. The adaptable alumnus already had one foot in the analytical world by the time Mr. Sandidge brought him aboard as a data engineer for Collins in 2023.
在某种程度上，奥巴马说. Werschey has simply moved on to a different language — interpreting databases coded in SQL rather than documents written in Japanese. 无论是人类还是机器，每种语言都有自己独特的模式.
“I don’t even know what I’m looking at half the time, and that’s the beauty of it,他说.
未来
虽然他们三个人都是远程工作的. 来自辛辛那提的Werschey, 另外两位来自伊利诺斯州北部——同志情谊依然深厚, 部分原因是他们都是博彩网址大全人. 虽然他们不能透露他们的人工智能使用的细节, these three alumni laugh off the apocalyptic predictions that some observers have made about the emerging technology.
Mr. Sandidge sees this no differently from the introduction of the calculator. 通过编程让机器完成它们最擅长的重复性任务, 他解释说, we can allow workers to focus on the “uniquely human skills” only they can provide.
同时监测国际空间站, one of the team’s goals is to predict when a part’s going to wear out. After all, astronauts can’t just head over to the hardware store for an instant replacement. It can take months or longer to build the part and schedule a launch.
It would take someone with unlimited time and attention span to sift through the mountain of data that’s automatically sent back from orbit. So the data crew is trying to build an anomaly detection model that doesn’t mind doing the gruntwork.
So, if the question is whether the end of human employment is just around the corner, even the avowed sci-fi nerd thinks it’s too outlandish to consider right now. Mr. 桑迪奇有一个更重要的结论.
“使用人工智能的人将取代不使用人工智能的人.”
亨特·桑迪奇15岁(左)和杰克逊·韦尔18岁(右).
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