An engineer who pioneered space communications in the UK has said Artificial Intelligence is to become a “real helper” of humanity in the years to come. Ian Jones is the founder and chief executive of the Goonhilly Earth Station Limited, the world’s first private “deep space operator”, which helps organisations like Nasa and ESA, as well as some private companies, to communicate with their space crafts in deep space – all from the Goonhilly Downs site near Helston, Cornwall.
The 62-year-old engineer, who was made an OBE during an investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle on Wednesday for “services to Space Communications”, said the UK should look more into the benefits AI can bring the country, its people and its economy, as he himself is moving into the field.
Speaking after the ceremony, Mr Jones said: “It’s really astonishing what’s happening in AI now.”. Commenting on Sir Keir Starmer’s announcement earlier this week that the Government has plans to make the UK an AI “superpower”, Mr Jones said: “I think that in the UK, we’ve been looking at the potential problems that AI could bring.
“Actually, the lens that we should be looking through is what benefits we can get from AI. “It’s using the knowledge that AI has. “AI by now has read every book and has read every page on the internet, and so, it has the ability to really help and inform us, to move more quickly, and to use that capability to get ahead – and to help others to get ahead.”.
