Will Marshall: AI will supercharge satellite imagery and analysis
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Artificial intelligence is going to "change the status quo," including by democratizing, scaling and accelerating one's ability to "extract information out of satellite data," Planet CEO Will Marshall told Axios in an interview.
Why he matters: His company's raison d'être, he told Axios, "is helping us to take care of this spacecraft — one spacecraft — called the Earth."
- Marshall was previously a systems engineer on the lunar orbiter mission LADEE and a member of the science team for the lunar impactor mission LCROSS.
Q: When you hear "future of defense," what comes to mind?
A: Not surprisingly, satellites and drones and AI. Also cyber. That combo is significantly important for information advantage in a conflict.
Q: When will wars be waged solely by robots?
A: At some level, it's starting to happen, right? Not solely, obviously, but I think there's more of that happening in the cyber realm than we might be publicly aware of already.
- I don't have a specific guesstimate, but 10 or 20 years seems like there may be real changes in this.
Q: What region of the world should we be watching? Why?
A: If you want to learn, it's Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, because they're, I think, at the forefront of what's going on. If you're worried about future things, obviously there's Taiwan. But I'm not telling you anything new here.
- What else is interesting? I think the hybrid stuff is interesting, and a lot of that is happening in the maritime domain, and I'd imagine that would continue and be pretty serious.
Q: How many emails do you get a day, and how do you deal with them?
A: I don't know; I don't check. Kidding. Not kidding. I would say a few hundred a day.
Q: What's a piece of gear or tech you can't go without?
A: My tennis racket.
Q: What advice would you give your younger self?
A: Carpe diem. You think you've got infinite time, but you don't.
