How AI changes NASA’s search for life in outer space

What challenges do you focus on in your research?
"NASA is the major organization exploring outer space. This entails a powerful position in shaping our understanding of the universe. This dissertation makes visible how NASA's aspirations to comprehend life as a universal phenomenon derive from local places, and practices that entail particular ways of knowing. The study focuses on how the introduction of new technological tools - AI - changes the ways in which the universe is made known at NASA. This dissertation addresses this by observing the work of scientists and engineers at NASA who develop new AI tools for future missions to Mars and the moon Titan."

What are the main findings?
"AI tools are shaped by the data that are available. This dissertation shows how the data originates from extreme places on Earth - such as the Atacama Desert - that are accessible, popular, or prestigious to study. This is one example of how the data that AI is trained on are biased towards phenomena that are charismatic, or relevant for industrial purposes, rather than planetary science. This dynamic in itself is not a new problem. However, AI becomes a new instance where decisions about the value of these data are made. It is crucial that the decision making occurs in negotiation with domain experts. It is especially important in the emergent use of so-called synthetic data, which programmers can artificially produce on their own."

What do you hope your research will lead to?
"This study provides important insights about the potential risks and possibilities associated with the use of AI in science, where making discoveries is at stake. It makes a contribution to discussions of AI in science, as well as AI in society at large, by focusing on the question of bias and responsibility."

Read the thesis: Life and AI at NASA: An Ethnography of How Scientists and Engineers Make Tools to Explore Other Worlds

Public defence: 30 January 2026 at 13:15

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