Meet Wukong, the AI Chatbot China Has Installed on Its Space Station

The newest addition to China’s Tiangong area station is an AI chatbot with experience in navigation and tactical planning. Named Wukong AI—after the protagonist of the “Monkey King” legend in Chinese mythology, Sun Wukong—the chatbot was launched on the area station in mid-July, and has already accomplished its first mission: supporting three taikonauts throughout a spacewalk.

Information about Wukong AI stays restricted. Chinese authorities have stated that they developed it from a home open-source AI mannequin; in line with Xinhua, China’s state-run information company, engineers designed it to satisfy the necessities of manned area missions, and targeted its knowledge-base on aerospace flight knowledge.

“This system can provide rapid and effective information support for complex operations and fault handling by crew members, improving work efficiency, in-orbit psychological support, and coordination between space and ground teams,” Zou Pengfei of the taikonaut coaching middle, told Xinhua.

Technicians related the AI to Tiangong on July 15. It started offering help a month later, this being the primary time that China’s area station has used a big language mannequin (LLM) throughout in-orbit missions. Wukong AI assisted the crew on a six-and-a-half-hour mission, which concerned taikonauts putting in area particles safety gadgets throughout a spacewalk and performing a routine inspection of the station.

The taikonauts declare that their new assistant “offers very comprehensive content.” Chinese media describe Wukong AI as a traditional question-and-answer system divided into two modules: one put in on the station, and one on Earth. The floor module performs in-depth evaluation, whereas the module accompanying the crew solves speedy challenges. The mixture of the 2 creates a complicated assistant able to adapting to every mission.

Wukong is neither the primary AI system in area nor the primary on a station. The International Space Station already has Astrobee, a robotic that assists astronauts with routine duties, and CIMON, a conversational psychological help system. The particularity of Wukong AI is that it combines the features of an clever assistant—like these used on Earth—with a complete deal with area navigation.

The Tiangong station is the core of China’s technique to consolidate its place as an area energy over the subsequent 30 years. The station at present serves as a microgravity laboratory for experiments that may be unimaginable on Earth. In the long run, China plans to develop it and switch it into an intermediate logistics and coaching platform between the moon and the Earth’s floor.

And the rationale for the AI’s title? Sun Wukong is a legendary one that seems within the traditional novel Journey to the West. In China, he symbolizes crafty, adaptability, endurance, and the pursuit of information.

This story initially appeared on WIRED en Español and has been translated from Spanish.