Artificial intelligence helping us to look deeper into black holes

Wikimedia public domain illustration from NASA.

Using the artificial intelligence of computers to piece together things we really can't quite see.

There is a science project to try and see down deeper into a black hole. This is not easy to see as it's so small in physical size and so far away. Black holes are big in terms of mass, but small in terms of physical size. They are also obscured by lots of stuff. Very hard to see from our distant vantage point here on Earth.

Using computers to piece together data from radio telescopes across the world, more information becomes available.

Then artificial intelligence can work; like human intelligence works when piecing together a jigsaw puzzle. We have some idea of what the finished puzzle is supposed to look like; a human face, a barn or whatever. This helps us to find missing pieces and take an educated guess at what the pieces we don't find would look like. Some pieces we just have to guess at since they fell out of the box during shipment (to continue the analogy of a jigsaw puzzle). The box this puzzle comes in was shipped a long ways; like thousands of light years. Filling in the pieces and guessing about other pieces we don't have begins to fill in a pretty good image; so we hope.

Just think of some of the other imaging and research that artificial intelligence can contribute to. A bit scary in terms of us being superseded, but, more optimistically, new tools for more exploration and knowledge.