Keoki Jackson: Lockheed Martin
太空与探索音乐与艺术政治与社会历史与文明技术与编程
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🎙️ 完整对话（1441 条）
Lex Fridman (00:00.000)
The following is a conversation with Keoki Jackson.
以下是与基奥基·杰克逊的对话。
Lex Fridman (00:03.340)
He's the CTO of Lockheed Martin,
他是洛克希德·马丁公司的首席技术官
Lex Fridman (00:06.680)
a company that through its long history
一家拥有悠久历史的公司
Lex Fridman (00:08.720)
has created some of the most incredible engineering marvels
创造了一些最令人难以置信的工程奇迹
Lex Fridman (00:11.560)
human beings have ever built,
人类曾经建造过，
Keoki Jackson (00:13.940)
including planes that fly fast and undetected,
包括飞行速度快且不被发现的飞机，
Lex Fridman (00:17.020)
defense systems that intersect nuclear threats
应对核威胁的防御系统
Keoki Jackson (00:19.820)
that can take the lives of millions,
这可能夺走数百万人的生命，
Lex Fridman (00:22.440)
and systems that venture out into space,
以及冒险进入太空的系统，
Keoki Jackson (00:25.240)
the moon, Mars, and beyond.
月球、火星以及更远的地方。
Lex Fridman (00:28.320)
And these days, more and more artificial intelligence
如今，人工智能越来越多
Keoki Jackson (00:31.740)
has an assistive role to play in these systems.
在这些系统中可以发挥辅助作用。
Lex Fridman (00:34.780)
I've read several books in preparation for this conversation.
为了准备这次谈话，我读了几本书。
Keoki Jackson (00:38.280)
It is a difficult one,
这是一件困难的事，
Lex Fridman (00:40.040)
because in part Lockheed Martin builds military systems
因为洛克希德·马丁公司部分地建造了军事系统
Keoki Jackson (00:43.420)
that operate in a complicated world
在复杂的世界中运作
Lex Fridman (00:45.220)
that often does not have easy solutions
通常没有简单的解决方案
Keoki Jackson (00:48.080)
in the gray area between good and evil.
处于善与恶之间的灰色地带。
Lex Fridman (00:52.420)
I hope one day this world will rid itself of war
我希望有一天这个世界能够摆脱战争
Keoki Jackson (00:56.380)
in all its forms.
各种形式。
Lex Fridman (00:58.540)
But the path to achieving that in a world
Keoki Jackson (01:00.300)
that does have evil is not obvious.
Lex Fridman (01:02.880)
What is obvious is good engineering
Lex Fridman (01:05.060)
and artificial intelligence research
Lex Fridman (01:07.100)
has a role to play on the side of good.
Keoki Jackson (01:11.180)
Lockheed Martin and the rest of our community
Lex Fridman (01:13.980)
are hard at work at exactly this task.
Keoki Jackson (01:17.020)
We talk about these and other important topics
Lex Fridman (01:19.660)
in this conversation.
Keoki Jackson (01:21.320)
Also, most certainly, both Keoki and I
Lex Fridman (01:24.820)
have a passion for space,
Keoki Jackson (01:27.060)
us humans venturing out toward the stars.
Lex Fridman (01:32.280)
We talk about this exciting future as well.
Keoki Jackson (01:35.400)
This is the Artificial Intelligence Podcast.
Lex Fridman (01:38.040)
If you enjoy it, subscribe on YouTube,
Keoki Jackson (01:40.500)
give it five stars on iTunes, support it on Patreon,
Lex Fridman (01:43.880)
or simply connect with me on Twitter at Lex Friedman,
Keoki Jackson (01:47.500)
spelled F R I D M A N.
Lex Fridman (01:50.660)
And now, here's my conversation with Keoki Jackson.
Keoki Jackson (01:55.540)
I read several books on Lockheed Martin recently.
Lex Fridman (01:57.900)
My favorite in particular is by Ben Rich,
Keoki Jackson (02:00.540)
Carlos Concord's personal memoir.
Lex Fridman (02:03.380)
It gets a little edgy at times.
Lex Fridman (02:05.080)
But from that, I was reminded that the engineers
Lex Fridman (02:09.560)
at Lockheed Martin have created some of the most
Keoki Jackson (02:11.980)
incredible engineering marvels human beings have ever built
Lex Fridman (02:15.140)
throughout the 20th century and the 21st.
Lex Fridman (02:18.680)
Do you remember a particular project or system at Lockheed
Lex Fridman (02:22.660)
or before that at the Space Shuttle Columbia
Keoki Jackson (02:25.460)
that you were just in awe at the fact that us humans
Lex Fridman (02:29.460)
could create something like this?
Keoki Jackson (02:32.420)
You know, that's a great question.
Lex Fridman (02:34.180)
There's a lot of things that I could draw on there.
Keoki Jackson (02:37.420)
When you look at the Skunk Works and Ben Rich's book
Lex Fridman (02:39.820)
in particular, of course, it starts off with basically
Keoki Jackson (02:42.520)
the start of the jet age and the P 80.
Lex Fridman (02:44.880)
And I had the opportunity to sit next to one
Keoki Jackson (02:49.020)
of the Apollo astronauts, Charlie Duke, recently at dinner.
Lex Fridman (02:53.060)
And I said, hey, what's your favorite aircraft?
Lex Fridman (02:56.060)
And he said, well, it was by far the F 104 Starfighter,
Lex Fridman (02:59.300)
which was another aircraft that came out of Lockheed there.
Keoki Jackson (03:02.740)
It was the first Mach 2 jet fighter aircraft.
Lex Fridman (03:08.220)
They called it the missile with a man in it.
Lex Fridman (03:11.220)
And so those are the kinds of things I grew up hearing
Lex Fridman (03:13.220)
stories about.
Keoki Jackson (03:15.340)
You know, of course, the SR 71 is incomparable
Lex Fridman (03:19.140)
as kind of the epitome of speed, altitude,
Lex Fridman (03:24.700)
and just the coolest looking aircraft ever.
Lex Fridman (03:26.820)
So there's a reconnaissance, that's a plane.
Keoki Jackson (03:29.100)
That's a, yeah, intelligence surveillance
Lex Fridman (03:30.940)
and reconnaissance aircraft that was designed
Keoki Jackson (03:33.380)
to be able to outrun, basically go faster
Lex Fridman (03:36.180)
than any air defense system.
Keoki Jackson (03:38.640)
But, you know, I'll tell you, I'm a space junkie.
Lex Fridman (03:42.940)
That's why I came to MIT.
Keoki Jackson (03:44.860)
That's really what took me ultimately to Lockheed Martin.
Lex Fridman (03:49.100)
And I grew up, and so Lockheed Martin, for example,
Keoki Jackson (03:51.380)
has been essentially at the heart of every planetary mission,
Lex Fridman (03:56.340)
like all the Mars missions we've had a part in.
Lex Fridman (03:59.580)
And we've talked a lot about the 50th anniversary
Lex Fridman (04:02.100)
of Apollo here in the last couple of weeks, right?
Lex Fridman (04:04.980)
But remember, 1976, July 20th, again, National Space Days,
Lex Fridman (04:09.980)
the landing of the Viking lander on the surface of Mars,
Keoki Jackson (04:15.260)
just a huge accomplishment.
Lex Fridman (04:17.020)
And when I was a young engineer at Lockheed Martin,
Keoki Jackson (04:19.980)
I got to meet engineers who had designed, you know,
Lex Fridman (04:23.140)
various pieces of that mission as well.
Lex Fridman (04:25.860)
So that's what I grew up on is these planetary missions,
Lex Fridman (04:28.700)
the start of the space shuttle era,
Lex Fridman (04:30.500)
and ultimately had the opportunity
Lex Fridman (04:34.780)
to see Lockheed Martin's part.
Keoki Jackson (04:38.140)
Lockheed Martin's part, and we can maybe talk about
Lex Fridman (04:40.100)
some of these here, but Lockheed Martin's part
Keoki Jackson (04:42.140)
in all of these space journeys over the years.
Lex Fridman (04:44.660)
Do you dream, and I apologize for getting philosophical
Keoki Jackson (04:47.540)
at times, or sentimental.
Lex Fridman (04:49.900)
I do romanticize the notion of space exploration.
Lex Fridman (04:53.100)
So do you dream of the day when us humans colonize
Lex Fridman (04:56.140)
another planet like Mars, or a man, a woman,
Lex Fridman (05:00.020)
a human being steps on Mars?
Lex Fridman (05:03.140)
Absolutely, and that's a personal dream of mine.
Keoki Jackson (05:06.580)
I haven't given up yet on my own opportunity
Lex Fridman (05:09.220)
to fly into space, but as, you know,
Keoki Jackson (05:12.700)
from the Lockheed Martin perspective,
Lex Fridman (05:14.420)
this is something that we're working towards every day.
Lex Fridman (05:16.860)
And of course, you know, we're building
Lex Fridman (05:18.740)
the Orion spacecraft, which is the most sophisticated
Keoki Jackson (05:21.860)
human rated spacecraft ever built.
Lex Fridman (05:23.860)
And it's really designed for these deep space journeys,
Keoki Jackson (05:26.820)
you know, starting with the moon,
Lex Fridman (05:28.060)
but ultimately going to Mars and being the platform,
Keoki Jackson (05:32.820)
you know, from a design perspective,
Lex Fridman (05:34.740)
we call the Mars base camp to be able to take humans
Keoki Jackson (05:37.460)
to the surface, and then after a mission
Lex Fridman (05:40.260)
of a couple of weeks, bring them back up safely.
Lex Fridman (05:42.300)
And so that is something I want to see happen
Lex Fridman (05:44.580)
during my time at Lockheed Martin.
Lex Fridman (05:46.620)
So I'm pretty excited about that.
Lex Fridman (05:49.220)
And I think, you know, once we prove that's possible,
Keoki Jackson (05:52.780)
you know, colonization might be a little bit further out,
Lex Fridman (05:57.180)
but it's something that I'd hope to see.
Lex Fridman (06:00.060)
So maybe you can give a little bit of an overview
Lex Fridman (06:03.500)
of, so Lockheed Martin has partnered with a few years ago
Keoki Jackson (06:07.740)
with Boeing to work with the DOD and NASA
Lex Fridman (06:09.820)
to build launch systems and rockets with the ULA.
Lex Fridman (06:13.580)
What's beyond that?
Lex Fridman (06:15.500)
What's Lockheed's mission timeline,
Lex Fridman (06:17.420)
long term dream in terms of space?
Lex Fridman (06:19.380)
You mentioned the moon, I've heard you talk about asteroids.
Lex Fridman (06:25.220)
As Mars, what's the timeline?
Lex Fridman (06:27.660)
What's the engineering challenges
Lex Fridman (06:29.300)
and what's the dream long term?
Lex Fridman (06:31.340)
Yeah, I think the dream long term is to have
Keoki Jackson (06:33.820)
a permanent presence in space beyond low earth orbit,
Lex Fridman (06:37.860)
ultimately with a long term presence on the moon
Lex Fridman (06:41.100)
and then to the planets, to Mars.
Lex Fridman (06:43.740)
And... Sorry to interrupt on that.
Lex Fridman (06:45.620)
So long term presence means...
Lex Fridman (06:48.020)
Sustained and sustainable presence in an economy,
Keoki Jackson (06:51.100)
a space economy that really goes alongside that.
Lex Fridman (06:54.420)
With human beings and being able to launch perhaps
Lex Fridman (06:58.300)
from those, so like hop?
Lex Fridman (07:02.060)
You know, there's a lot of energy
Lex Fridman (07:04.540)
that goes in those hops, right?
Lex Fridman (07:06.060)
So I think the first step is being able to get there
Lex Fridman (07:09.740)
and to be able to establish sustained bases, right?
Lex Fridman (07:12.620)
And build from there.
Lex Fridman (07:14.820)
And a lot of that means getting, as you know,
Lex Fridman (07:18.980)
things like the cost of launch down
Lex Fridman (07:21.500)
and you mentioned United Launch Alliance.
Lex Fridman (07:23.620)
And so I don't wanna speak for ULA,
Lex Fridman (07:26.140)
but obviously they're working really hard
Lex Fridman (07:29.020)
to on their next generation of launch vehicles
Keoki Jackson (07:34.940)
to maintain that incredible mission success record
Lex Fridman (07:39.260)
that ULA has, but ultimately continue
Keoki Jackson (07:41.420)
to drive down the cost and make the flexibility,
Lex Fridman (07:43.860)
the speed and the access ever greater.
Lex Fridman (07:46.900)
So what's the missions that are in the horizon
Lex Fridman (07:50.380)
that you could talk to?
Lex Fridman (07:51.660)
Is there a hope to get to the moon?
Lex Fridman (07:53.380)
Absolutely, absolutely.
Keoki Jackson (07:54.620)
I mean, I think you know this, or you may know this,
Lex Fridman (07:58.060)
there's a lot of ways to accomplish some of these goals.
Lex Fridman (08:00.620)
And so that's a lot of what's in discussion today.
Lex Fridman (08:03.780)
But ultimately the goal is to be able to establish a base
Keoki Jackson (08:09.060)
essentially in cislunar space that would allow
Lex Fridman (08:12.060)
for ready transfer from orbit to the lunar surface
Lex Fridman (08:19.020)
and back again.
Lex Fridman (08:19.900)
And so that's sort of that near term,
Keoki Jackson (08:21.900)
I say near term in the next decade or so vision,
Lex Fridman (08:26.020)
starting off with a stated objective by this administration
Keoki Jackson (08:29.900)
to get back to the moon in the 2024, 2025 timeframe,
Lex Fridman (08:34.100)
which is right around the corner here.
Lex Fridman (08:37.260)
How big of an engineering challenge is that?
Lex Fridman (08:41.580)
I think the big challenge is not so much to go,
Lex Fridman (08:44.580)
but to stay, right?
Lex Fridman (08:46.180)
And so we demonstrated in the 60s
Keoki Jackson (08:48.980)
that you could send somebody up,
Lex Fridman (08:50.900)
do a couple of days of mission
Lex Fridman (08:52.900)
and bring them home again successfully.
Lex Fridman (08:55.580)
Now we're talking about doing that,
Keoki Jackson (08:57.260)
I'd say more to, I don't wanna say an industrial scale,
Lex Fridman (08:59.780)
but a sustained scale, right?
Lex Fridman (09:01.380)
So permanent habitation, regular reuse of vehicles,
Lex Fridman (09:09.460)
the infrastructure to get things like fuel, air,
Keoki Jackson (09:15.220)
consumables, replacement parts,
Lex Fridman (09:17.100)
all the things that you need to sustain
Keoki Jackson (09:18.980)
that kind of infrastructure.
Lex Fridman (09:20.740)
So those are certainly engineering challenges,
Keoki Jackson (09:23.620)
there are budgetary challenges,
Lex Fridman (09:26.100)
and those are all things
Keoki Jackson (09:28.980)
that we're gonna have to work through.
Lex Fridman (09:30.700)
The other thing, and I shouldn't,
Keoki Jackson (09:33.860)
I don't wanna minimize this,
Lex Fridman (09:35.060)
I mean, I'm excited about human exploration,
Lex Fridman (09:38.220)
but the reality is our technology
Lex Fridman (09:40.820)
and where we've come over the last 40 years essentially
Keoki Jackson (09:44.980)
has changed what we can do with robotic exploration as well.
Lex Fridman (09:48.860)
And to me, it's incredibly thrilling,
Lex Fridman (09:52.020)
and this seems like old news now,
Lex Fridman (09:53.740)
but the fact that we have rovers driving around
Keoki Jackson (09:57.340)
the surface of Mars and sending back data
Lex Fridman (10:00.300)
is just incredible.
Keoki Jackson (10:01.340)
The fact that we have satellites in orbit around Mars
Lex Fridman (10:04.260)
that are collecting weather,
Keoki Jackson (10:06.420)
they're looking at the terrain, they're mapping,
Lex Fridman (10:08.340)
all of these kinds of things on a continuous basis,
Keoki Jackson (10:11.340)
that's incredible.
Lex Fridman (10:12.740)
And the fact that you got the time lag, of course,
Keoki Jackson (10:15.900)
going to the planets,
Lex Fridman (10:17.940)
but you can effectively have virtual human presence there
Keoki Jackson (10:22.940)
in a way that we have never been able to do before.
Lex Fridman (10:25.860)
And now with the advent of even greater processing power,
Keoki Jackson (10:30.060)
better AI systems, better cognitive systems
Lex Fridman (10:33.580)
and decision systems,
Keoki Jackson (10:35.740)
you put that together with the human piece
Lex Fridman (10:38.780)
and we've really opened up the solar system
Keoki Jackson (10:41.500)
in a whole different way.
Lex Fridman (10:42.540)
And I'll give you an example, we've got OSIRIS REx,
Keoki Jackson (10:44.900)
which is a mission to the asteroid Bennu.
Lex Fridman (10:47.780)
So the spacecraft is out there right now
Keoki Jackson (10:50.900)
on basically a year mapping activity
Lex Fridman (10:54.260)
to map the entire surface of that asteroid in great detail.
Lex Fridman (10:59.180)
You know, all autonomously piloted, right?
Lex Fridman (11:02.540)
But the idea then that, and this is not too far away,
Keoki Jackson (11:04.820)
it's gonna go in,
Lex Fridman (11:05.980)
it's got a sort of fancy vacuum cleaner with a bucket,
Keoki Jackson (11:09.620)
it's gonna collect the sample off the asteroid
Lex Fridman (11:12.540)
and then send it back here to Earth.
Lex Fridman (11:14.420)
And so, you know, we have gone from sort of those
Lex Fridman (11:18.140)
tentative steps in the 70s, you know,
Keoki Jackson (11:21.260)
early landings, video of the solar system
Lex Fridman (11:23.940)
to now we've sent spacecraft to Pluto,
Keoki Jackson (11:27.060)
we have gone to comets and brought and intercepted comets,
Lex Fridman (11:31.620)
we've brought stardust, you know, material back.
Lex Fridman (11:37.260)
So that's, we've gone far
Lex Fridman (11:40.700)
and there's incredible opportunity to go even farther.
Lex Fridman (11:43.700)
So it seems quite crazy that this is even possible,
Lex Fridman (11:47.420)
that can you talk a little bit about
Lex Fridman (11:51.340)
what it means to orbit an asteroid
Lex Fridman (11:54.060)
and with a bucket to try to pick up some soil samples?
Keoki Jackson (11:58.380)
Yeah, so part of it is just kind of the, you know,
Lex Fridman (12:02.460)
these are the same kinds of techniques we use here on Earth
Keoki Jackson (12:05.940)
for high speed, high accuracy imagery,
Lex Fridman (12:10.940)
stitching these scenes together and creating
Lex Fridman (12:14.300)
essentially high accuracy world maps, right?
Lex Fridman (12:17.460)
And so that's what we're doing, obviously,
Keoki Jackson (12:20.300)
on a much smaller scale with an asteroid.
Lex Fridman (12:23.180)
But the other thing that's really interesting,
Keoki Jackson (12:24.940)
you put together sort of that neat control
Lex Fridman (12:28.500)
and, you know, data and imagery problem.
Lex Fridman (12:33.660)
But the stories around how we designed the collection,
Lex Fridman (12:36.980)
I mean, as essentially, you know,
Lex Fridman (12:38.420)
this is the sort of the human ingenuity element, right?
Lex Fridman (12:41.380)
That, you know, essentially had an engineer who had a,
Keoki Jackson (12:45.780)
one day he's like, oh, starts messing around with parts,
Lex Fridman (12:49.220)
vacuum cleaner, bucket, you know,
Keoki Jackson (12:51.860)
maybe we could do something like this.
Lex Fridman (12:53.460)
And that was what led to what we call
Lex Fridman (12:55.140)
the pogo stick collection, right?
Lex Fridman (12:57.020)
Where basically a thing comes down,
Keoki Jackson (12:59.220)
it's only there for seconds, does that collection,
Lex Fridman (13:02.860)
grabs the, essentially blows the regolith material
Keoki Jackson (13:07.500)
into the collection hopper and off it goes.
Lex Fridman (13:10.180)
It doesn't really land almost.
Keoki Jackson (13:12.060)
It's a very short landing.
Lex Fridman (13:13.540)
Wow, that's incredible.
Lex Fridman (13:15.460)
So what is, in those, we talked a little bit more
Lex Fridman (13:20.500)
about space, what's the role of the human in all of this?
Lex Fridman (13:24.380)
What are the challenges?
Lex Fridman (13:25.820)
What are the opportunities for humans
Lex Fridman (13:29.060)
as they pilot these vehicles in space?
Lex Fridman (13:33.780)
And for humans that may step foot
Lex Fridman (13:37.540)
on either the moon or Mars?
Lex Fridman (13:41.260)
Yeah, it's a great question because, you know,
Keoki Jackson (13:43.500)
I just have been extolling the virtues of robotic
Lex Fridman (13:47.380)
and, you know, rovers, autonomous systems,
Lex Fridman (13:50.820)
and those absolutely have a role.
Lex Fridman (13:53.740)
I think the thing that we don't know how to replace today
Keoki Jackson (13:57.260)
is the ability to adapt on the fly to new information.
Lex Fridman (14:02.260)
And I believe that will come, but we're not there yet.
Keoki Jackson (14:07.620)
There's a ways to go.
Lex Fridman (14:08.820)
And so, you know, you think back to Apollo 13
Lex Fridman (14:13.620)
and the ingenuity of the folks on the ground
Lex Fridman (14:15.980)
and on the spacecraft essentially cobbled together
Keoki Jackson (14:19.140)
a way to get the carbon dioxide scrubbers to work.
Lex Fridman (14:23.820)
Those are the kinds of things that ultimately, you know,
Lex Fridman (14:28.380)
and I'd say not just from dealing with anomalies,
Lex Fridman (14:31.340)
but, you know, dealing with new information.
Keoki Jackson (14:33.660)
You see something and rather than waiting
Lex Fridman (14:37.740)
20 minutes or half an hour, an hour
Keoki Jackson (14:39.660)
to try to get information back and forth,
Lex Fridman (14:42.100)
but be able to essentially revector on the fly,
Keoki Jackson (14:45.340)
collect, you know, different samples,
Lex Fridman (14:47.660)
take a different approach,
Keoki Jackson (14:49.140)
choose different areas to explore.
Lex Fridman (14:52.740)
Those are the kinds of things that human presence enables
Keoki Jackson (14:56.780)
that is still a ways ahead of us on the AI side.
Lex Fridman (15:00.300)
Yeah, there's some interesting stuff
Keoki Jackson (15:01.500)
we'll talk about on the teaming side here on Earth.
Lex Fridman (15:04.580)
That's pretty cool to explore.
Lex Fridman (15:06.420)
And in space, let's not leave the space piece out.
Lex Fridman (15:08.820)
So what does teaming, what does AI and humans
Lex Fridman (15:11.700)
working together in space look like?
Lex Fridman (15:13.900)
Yeah, one of the things we're working on
Keoki Jackson (15:15.420)
is a system called Maya, which is,
Lex Fridman (15:18.060)
you think of it, so it's an AI assistant.
Keoki Jackson (15:21.340)
In space. In space, exactly.
Lex Fridman (15:24.180)
And you think of it as the Alexa in space, right?
Lex Fridman (15:28.540)
But this goes hand in hand with a lot of other developments.
Lex Fridman (15:31.700)
And so today's world, everything is essentially model based,
Keoki Jackson (15:35.140)
model based systems engineering
Lex Fridman (15:38.020)
to the actual digital tapestry that goes through the design,
Keoki Jackson (15:42.540)
the build, the manufacture, the testing,
Lex Fridman (15:44.780)
and ultimately the sustainment of these system.
Lex Fridman (15:47.620)
And so our vision is really that, you know,
Lex Fridman (15:50.980)
when our astronauts are there around Mars,
Keoki Jackson (15:54.780)
you're gonna have that entire digital library
Lex Fridman (15:59.420)
of the spacecraft, of its operations, all the test data,
Keoki Jackson (16:04.420)
all the test data and flight data from previous missions
Lex Fridman (16:08.060)
to be able to look and see if there are anomalous conditions
Lex Fridman (16:11.780)
and tell the humans and potentially deal with that
Lex Fridman (16:16.020)
before it becomes a bad situation
Lex Fridman (16:20.100)
and help the astronauts work through those kinds of things.
Lex Fridman (16:23.180)
And it's not just, you know,
Keoki Jackson (16:25.260)
dealing with problems as they come up,
Lex Fridman (16:26.860)
but also offering up opportunities
Keoki Jackson (16:29.220)
for additional exploration capability, for example.
Lex Fridman (16:32.540)
So that's the vision is that, you know,
Keoki Jackson (16:34.980)
these are gonna take the best of the human
Lex Fridman (16:37.140)
to respond to changing circumstances
Lex Fridman (16:41.060)
and rely on the best of AI capabilities
Lex Fridman (16:44.620)
to monitor these, you know,
Keoki Jackson (16:46.180)
this almost infinite number of data points
Lex Fridman (16:49.540)
and correlations of data points
Keoki Jackson (16:51.620)
that humans frankly aren't that good at.
Lex Fridman (16:54.020)
So how do you develop systems in space like this,
Keoki Jackson (16:56.260)
whether it's Alexa in space or in general,
Lex Fridman (17:01.260)
any kind of control systems,
Keoki Jackson (17:03.580)
any kind of intelligent systems
Lex Fridman (17:04.940)
when you can't really test stuff too much out in space?
Keoki Jackson (17:08.700)
It's very expensive to test stuff.
Lex Fridman (17:10.860)
So how do you develop such systems?
Keoki Jackson (17:14.260)
Yeah, that's the beauty of this digital twin, if you will.
Lex Fridman (17:19.020)
And of course, with Lockheed Martin,
Keoki Jackson (17:21.140)
we've over the past, you know, five plus decades
Lex Fridman (17:24.580)
been refining our knowledge of the space environment,
Keoki Jackson (17:28.180)
of how materials behave, dynamics,
Lex Fridman (17:32.180)
the controls, the radiation environments,
Keoki Jackson (17:35.940)
all of these kinds of things.
Lex Fridman (17:37.260)
So we're able to create very sophisticated models.
Keoki Jackson (17:39.940)
They're not perfect, but they're very good.
Lex Fridman (17:43.500)
And so you can actually do a lot.
Keoki Jackson (17:46.660)
I spent part of my career, you know,
Lex Fridman (17:49.060)
simulating communication spacecraft,
Keoki Jackson (17:53.100)
you know, missile warning spacecraft, GPS spacecraft
Lex Fridman (17:56.460)
in all kinds of scenarios and all kinds of environments.
Lex Fridman (17:59.340)
So this is really just taking that to the next level.
Lex Fridman (18:01.940)
The interesting thing is that now
Keoki Jackson (18:03.860)
you're bringing into that loop
Lex Fridman (18:06.420)
a system depending on how it's developed
Keoki Jackson (18:08.380)
that may be non deterministic,
Lex Fridman (18:10.620)
it may be learning as it goes.
Lex Fridman (18:13.260)
And in fact, we anticipate
Lex Fridman (18:14.500)
that it will be learning as it goes.
Lex Fridman (18:16.620)
And so that brings a whole new level of interest,
Lex Fridman (18:21.820)
I guess, into how do you do verification and validation
Keoki Jackson (18:25.420)
of these non deterministic learning systems
Lex Fridman (18:28.580)
in scenarios that may go out of the bounds
Keoki Jackson (18:31.780)
or the envelope that you have initially designed them to.
Lex Fridman (18:35.100)
So had this system and its intelligence
Keoki Jackson (18:37.460)
has the same complexity,
Lex Fridman (18:39.220)
some of the same complexity human does
Lex Fridman (18:41.060)
and learns over time, it's unpredictable
Lex Fridman (18:43.660)
in certain kinds of ways in the,
Lex Fridman (18:46.260)
so you still, you also have to model that
Lex Fridman (18:49.100)
when you're thinking about it.
Lex Fridman (18:50.100)
So in your thoughts, it's possible
Lex Fridman (18:53.460)
to model the majority of situations,
Keoki Jackson (18:57.260)
the important aspects of situations here on earth
Lex Fridman (18:59.660)
and in space enough to test stuff?
Keoki Jackson (19:02.320)
Yeah, this is really an active area of research
Lex Fridman (19:05.620)
and we're actually funding university research
Keoki Jackson (19:07.480)
in a variety of places, including MIT.
Lex Fridman (19:10.140)
This is in the realm of trust and verification
Lex Fridman (19:13.780)
and validation of I'd say autonomous systems in general
Lex Fridman (19:18.020)
and then as a subset of that autonomous systems
Keoki Jackson (19:21.020)
that incorporate artificial intelligence capabilities.
Lex Fridman (19:24.620)
And this is not an easy problem.
Keoki Jackson (19:27.980)
We're working with startup companies,
Lex Fridman (19:29.600)
we've got internal R&D, but our conviction is
Keoki Jackson (19:33.700)
that autonomy and more and more AI enabled autonomy
Lex Fridman (19:39.260)
is gonna be in everything that Lockheed Martin develops
Lex Fridman (19:42.780)
and fields and it's gonna be retrofitting it.
Lex Fridman (19:46.700)
Autonomy and AI are gonna be retrofit
Keoki Jackson (19:48.940)
into existing systems, they're gonna be part
Lex Fridman (19:50.900)
of the design for all of our future systems.
Lex Fridman (19:54.540)
And so maybe I should take a step back
Lex Fridman (19:56.580)
and say the way we define autonomy.
Lex Fridman (19:58.680)
So we talk about autonomy essentially a system
Lex Fridman (1:00:00.040)
the kinds of incredibly destructive world wars
Keoki Jackson (1:00:03.760)
that we saw in the first half of the 20th century.
Lex Fridman (1:00:07.280)
Now, things have gotten more complicated since that time
Lex Fridman (1:00:10.920)
and since the Cold War.
Lex Fridman (1:00:12.320)
It is more of a multipolar great powers world today.
Keoki Jackson (1:00:16.600)
Just to give you an example, back then,
Lex Fridman (1:00:19.040)
there were, in the Cold War timeframe,
Keoki Jackson (1:00:21.880)
just a handful of nations
Lex Fridman (1:00:23.120)
that had ballistic missile capability by last count.
Lex Fridman (1:00:27.000)
And this is a few years old.
Lex Fridman (1:00:28.280)
There's over 70 nations today that have that.
Keoki Jackson (1:00:31.280)
Similar kinds of numbers
Lex Fridman (1:00:33.880)
in terms of space based capabilities.
Lex Fridman (1:00:38.080)
So the world has gotten more complex and more challenging
Lex Fridman (1:00:42.600)
and the threats, I think, have proliferated
Keoki Jackson (1:00:45.640)
in ways that we didn't expect.
Lex Fridman (1:00:49.720)
The nation today is in the middle of a recapitalization
Keoki Jackson (1:00:53.280)
of our strategic deterrent.
Lex Fridman (1:00:55.360)
I look at that as one of the most important things
Keoki Jackson (1:00:58.760)
that our nation can do.
Lex Fridman (1:01:00.320)
What is involved in deterrence?
Keoki Jackson (1:01:01.880)
Is it being ready to attack
Lex Fridman (1:01:08.040)
or is it the defensive systems that catch attacks?
Keoki Jackson (1:01:11.560)
A little bit of both.
Lex Fridman (1:01:12.560)
And so it's a complicated game theoretical kind of program.
Lex Fridman (1:01:16.680)
But ultimately,
Lex Fridman (1:01:20.680)
we are trying to prevent the use of any of these weapons.
Lex Fridman (1:01:24.920)
And the theory behind prevention is that
Lex Fridman (1:01:29.280)
even if an adversary uses a weapon against you,
Keoki Jackson (1:01:33.320)
you have the capability to essentially strike back
Lex Fridman (1:01:37.640)
and do harm to them that's unacceptable.
Lex Fridman (1:01:40.840)
And so that will deter them from making use
Lex Fridman (1:01:44.960)
of these weapons systems.
Keoki Jackson (1:01:48.040)
The deterrence calculus has changed, of course,
Lex Fridman (1:01:50.800)
with more nations now having these kinds of weapons.
Lex Fridman (1:01:56.320)
But I think from my perspective, it's very important
Lex Fridman (1:02:02.240)
to maintain a strategic deterrent.
Keoki Jackson (1:02:05.040)
You have to have systems that you know will work
Lex Fridman (1:02:08.840)
when they're required to work.
Keoki Jackson (1:02:11.000)
Now you know that they have to be adaptable
Lex Fridman (1:02:13.560)
to a variety of different scenarios in today's world.
Lex Fridman (1:02:17.560)
And so that's what this recapitalization of systems
Lex Fridman (1:02:20.400)
that were built over previous decades,
Keoki Jackson (1:02:23.240)
making sure that they are appropriate, not just for today,
Lex Fridman (1:02:26.640)
but for the decades to come.
Lex Fridman (1:02:29.120)
So the other thing I'd really like to note
Lex Fridman (1:02:32.200)
is strategic deterrence has a very different
Keoki Jackson (1:02:35.800)
character today.
Lex Fridman (1:02:40.160)
We used to think of weapons of mass destruction
Keoki Jackson (1:02:42.400)
in terms of nuclear, chemical, biological.
Lex Fridman (1:02:45.760)
And today we have a cyber threat.
Keoki Jackson (1:02:48.680)
We've seen examples of the use of cyber weaponry.
Lex Fridman (1:02:54.360)
And if you think about the possibilities
Keoki Jackson (1:02:58.560)
of using cyber capabilities or an adversary attacking the US
Lex Fridman (1:03:03.560)
to take out things like critical infrastructure,
Keoki Jackson (1:03:07.560)
electrical grids, water systems,
Lex Fridman (1:03:11.440)
those are scenarios that are strategic in nature
Keoki Jackson (1:03:16.320)
to the survival of a nation as well.
Lex Fridman (1:03:19.080)
So that is the kind of world that we live in today.
Lex Fridman (1:03:23.080)
And part of my hope on this is one that we can also develop
Lex Fridman (1:03:28.480)
technical or technological systems,
Keoki Jackson (1:03:30.920)
perhaps enabled by AI and autonomy,
Lex Fridman (1:03:33.640)
that will allow us to contain and to fight back
Keoki Jackson (1:03:38.680)
against these kinds of new threats
Lex Fridman (1:03:41.880)
that were not conceived when we first developed
Keoki Jackson (1:03:44.840)
our strategic deterrence.
Lex Fridman (1:03:46.280)
Yeah, I know that Lockheed is involved in cyber,
Lex Fridman (1:03:48.400)
so I saw that you mentioned that.
Lex Fridman (1:03:52.080)
It's an incredibly, nuclear almost seems easier than cyber
Keoki Jackson (1:03:57.600)
because there's so many attack,
Lex Fridman (1:03:58.840)
there's so many ways that cyber can evolve
Keoki Jackson (1:04:01.720)
in such an uncertain future.
Lex Fridman (1:04:03.440)
But talking about engineering with a mission,
Keoki Jackson (1:04:05.800)
I mean, in this case that you're engineering systems
Lex Fridman (1:04:09.640)
that basically save the world.
Keoki Jackson (1:04:13.680)
Well, like I said, we're privileged to work
Lex Fridman (1:04:18.000)
on some very challenging problems
Keoki Jackson (1:04:20.000)
for very critical customers here in the US
Lex Fridman (1:04:23.320)
and with our allies abroad as well.
Keoki Jackson (1:04:25.140)
Lockheed builds both military and nonmilitary systems.
Lex Fridman (1:04:30.740)
And perhaps the future of Lockheed
Keoki Jackson (1:04:32.940)
may be more in nonmilitary applications
Lex Fridman (1:04:35.300)
if you talk about space and beyond.
Keoki Jackson (1:04:38.220)
I say that as a preface to a difficult question.
Lex Fridman (1:04:41.420)
So President Eisenhower in 1961 in his farewell address
Keoki Jackson (1:04:46.180)
talked about the military industrial complex
Lex Fridman (1:04:48.940)
and that it shouldn't grow beyond what is needed.
Lex Fridman (1:04:51.660)
So what are your thoughts on those words,
Lex Fridman (1:04:55.860)
on the military industrial complex,
Keoki Jackson (1:04:58.780)
on the concern of growth of their developments
Lex Fridman (1:05:04.100)
beyond what may be needed?
Keoki Jackson (1:05:06.940)
That where it may be needed is a critical phrase, of course.
Lex Fridman (1:05:12.420)
And I think it is worth pointing out, as you noted,
Keoki Jackson (1:05:15.020)
that Lockheed Martin,
Lex Fridman (1:05:16.020)
we are in a number of commercial businesses
Keoki Jackson (1:05:19.420)
from energy to space to commercial aircraft.
Lex Fridman (1:05:24.020)
And so I wouldn't neglect the importance
Keoki Jackson (1:05:28.660)
of those parts of our business as well.
Lex Fridman (1:05:32.140)
I think the world is dynamic and there was a time,
Lex Fridman (1:05:36.980)
and it doesn't seem that long ago to me,
Lex Fridman (1:05:38.900)
it was while I was a graduate student here at MIT
Lex Fridman (1:05:41.920)
and we were talking about the peace dividend
Lex Fridman (1:05:43.980)
at the end of the Cold War.
Keoki Jackson (1:05:45.780)
If you look at expenditure on military systems
Lex Fridman (1:05:49.260)
as a fraction of GDP,
Keoki Jackson (1:05:51.380)
we're far below peak levels of the past.
Lex Fridman (1:05:55.660)
And to me, at least, it looks like a time
Keoki Jackson (1:05:59.180)
where you're seeing global threats changing in a way
Lex Fridman (1:06:02.740)
that would warrant relevant investments
Keoki Jackson (1:06:06.980)
in defensive capabilities.
Lex Fridman (1:06:10.940)
The other thing I'd note,
Keoki Jackson (1:06:14.020)
for military and defensive systems,
Lex Fridman (1:06:17.140)
it's not quite a free market, right?
Keoki Jackson (1:06:21.500)
We don't sell to people on the street.
Lex Fridman (1:06:25.740)
And that warrants a very close partnership
Keoki Jackson (1:06:29.500)
between, I'd say, the customers and the people
Lex Fridman (1:06:33.180)
that design, build, and maintain these systems
Keoki Jackson (1:06:38.300)
because of the very unique nature,
Lex Fridman (1:06:42.020)
the very difficult requirements,
Keoki Jackson (1:06:44.980)
the very great importance on safety
Lex Fridman (1:06:49.420)
and on operating the way they're intended every time.
Lex Fridman (1:06:54.580)
And so that does create,
Lex Fridman (1:06:56.740)
and frankly, it's one of Lockheed Martin's great strengths
Keoki Jackson (1:06:59.540)
is that we have this expertise built up over many years
Lex Fridman (1:07:03.460)
in partnership with our customers
Keoki Jackson (1:07:05.400)
to be able to design and build these systems
Lex Fridman (1:07:08.220)
that meet these very unique mission needs.
Keoki Jackson (1:07:11.560)
Yeah, because building those systems is very costly,
Lex Fridman (1:07:14.380)
there's very little room for mistake.
Keoki Jackson (1:07:16.100)
I mean, it's, yeah, just Ben Rich's book and so on
Lex Fridman (1:07:18.980)
just tells the story.
Keoki Jackson (1:07:20.300)
It's nerve wracking just reading it.
Lex Fridman (1:07:22.340)
If you're an engineer, it reads like a thriller.
Keoki Jackson (1:07:24.380)
Okay, let me, let's go back to space for a second.
Lex Fridman (1:07:29.380)
I guess.
Keoki Jackson (1:07:30.700)
I'm always happy to go back to space.
Lex Fridman (1:07:33.140)
So a few quick, maybe out there,
Keoki Jackson (1:07:36.420)
maybe fun questions, maybe a little provocative.
Lex Fridman (1:07:40.580)
What are your thoughts on the efforts
Lex Fridman (1:07:43.680)
of the new folks, SpaceX and Elon Musk?
Lex Fridman (1:07:48.880)
What are your thoughts about what Elon is doing?
Lex Fridman (1:07:50.900)
Do you see him as competition?
Lex Fridman (1:07:52.660)
Do you enjoy competition?
Lex Fridman (1:07:55.380)
What are your thoughts?
Lex Fridman (1:07:56.220)
Yeah, first of all, certainly Elon,
Keoki Jackson (1:08:00.060)
I'd say SpaceX and some of his other ventures
Lex Fridman (1:08:03.220)
are definitely a competitive force in the space industry.
Lex Fridman (1:08:08.220)
And do we like competition?
Lex Fridman (1:08:09.900)
Yeah, we do.
Lex Fridman (1:08:11.500)
And we think we're very strong competitors.
Lex Fridman (1:08:15.580)
I think it's, you know, competition is what the US
Keoki Jackson (1:08:19.820)
is founded on in a lot of ways
Lex Fridman (1:08:22.140)
and always coming up with a better way.
Lex Fridman (1:08:24.700)
And I think it's really important
Lex Fridman (1:08:27.540)
to continue to have fresh eyes coming in, new innovation.
Keoki Jackson (1:08:33.020)
I do think it's important to have level playing fields.
Lex Fridman (1:08:35.500)
And so you wanna make sure
Keoki Jackson (1:08:37.140)
that you're not giving different requirements
Lex Fridman (1:08:41.260)
to different players.
Keoki Jackson (1:08:42.860)
But, you know, I tell people, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:08:45.580)
I spent a lot of time at places like MIT.
Keoki Jackson (1:08:47.580)
I'm gonna be at the MIT Beaverwork Summer Institute
Lex Fridman (1:08:50.640)
over the weekend here.
Lex Fridman (1:08:52.140)
And I tell people, this is the most exciting time
Lex Fridman (1:08:55.100)
to be in the space business in my entire life.
Lex Fridman (1:08:58.460)
And it is this explosion of new capabilities
Lex Fridman (1:09:03.020)
that have been driven by things like the, you know,
Keoki Jackson (1:09:06.080)
the massive increase in computing power,
Lex Fridman (1:09:08.900)
things like the massive increase in comms capabilities,
Keoki Jackson (1:09:13.100)
advanced and additive manufacturing
Lex Fridman (1:09:15.180)
are really bringing down the barriers to entry in this field
Lex Fridman (1:09:19.540)
and it's driving just incredible innovation.
Lex Fridman (1:09:21.940)
And it's happening at startups,
Lex Fridman (1:09:23.080)
but it's also happening at Lockheed Martin.
Lex Fridman (1:09:25.460)
You may not realize this, but Lockheed Martin,
Keoki Jackson (1:09:27.300)
working with Stanford actually built the first CubeSat
Lex Fridman (1:09:31.220)
that was launched here out of the US
Keoki Jackson (1:09:33.660)
that was called QuakeSat.
Lex Fridman (1:09:35.180)
And we did that with Stellar Solutions.
Keoki Jackson (1:09:37.500)
This was right around just after 2000, I guess.
Lex Fridman (1:09:41.660)
And so we've been in that, you know,
Keoki Jackson (1:09:43.780)
from the very beginning.
Lex Fridman (1:09:45.580)
And, you know, I talked about some of these,
Keoki Jackson (1:09:48.460)
like, you know, Maya and Orion,
Lex Fridman (1:09:50.180)
but, you know, we're in the middle of what we call smartsats
Lex Fridman (1:09:54.220)
and software defined satellites
Lex Fridman (1:09:55.860)
that can essentially restructure and remap their purpose,
Keoki Jackson (1:10:00.660)
their mission on orbit to give you almost, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:10:04.060)
unlimited flexibility for these satellites
Keoki Jackson (1:10:06.580)
over their lifetimes.
Lex Fridman (1:10:08.060)
So those are just a couple of examples,
Lex Fridman (1:10:10.280)
but yeah, this is a great time to be in space.
Lex Fridman (1:10:13.580)
Absolutely.
Lex Fridman (1:10:14.420)
So Wright Brothers flew for the first time 116 years ago.
Lex Fridman (1:10:20.220)
So now we have supersonic stealth planes
Lex Fridman (1:10:23.120)
and all the technology we've talked about.
Lex Fridman (1:10:25.480)
What innovations, obviously you can't predict the future,
Lex Fridman (1:10:29.340)
but do you see Lockheed in the next 100 years?
Lex Fridman (1:10:32.460)
If you take that same leap,
Lex Fridman (1:10:34.160)
how will the world of technology and engineering change?
Lex Fridman (1:10:37.840)
I know it's an impossible question,
Lex Fridman (1:10:39.360)
but nobody could have predicted
Lex Fridman (1:10:42.320)
that we could even fly 120 years ago.
Lex Fridman (1:10:45.800)
So what do you think is the edge of possibility
Lex Fridman (1:10:50.640)
that we're going to be exploring in the next 100 years?
Keoki Jackson (1:10:52.680)
I don't know that there is an edge.
Lex Fridman (1:10:54.580)
I, you know, we've been around
Lex Fridman (1:10:56.120)
for almost that entire time, right?
Lex Fridman (1:10:58.640)
The Lockheed brothers and Glen L. Martin
Keoki Jackson (1:11:03.880)
starting their companies in the basement of a church
Lex Fridman (1:11:08.000)
and an old service station.
Keoki Jackson (1:11:11.880)
We're very different companies today
Lex Fridman (1:11:14.280)
than we were back then, right?
Lex Fridman (1:11:15.740)
And that's because we've continuously reinvented ourselves
Lex Fridman (1:11:19.080)
over all of those decades.
Keoki Jackson (1:11:21.720)
I think it's fair to say, I know this for sure,
Lex Fridman (1:11:24.360)
the world of the future, it's gonna move faster,
Keoki Jackson (1:11:27.880)
it's gonna be more connected,
Lex Fridman (1:11:29.360)
it's gonna be more autonomous,
Lex Fridman (1:11:31.700)
and it's gonna be more complex than it is today.
Lex Fridman (1:11:36.220)
And so this is the world, you know,
Keoki Jackson (1:11:38.360)
as a CTO at Lockheed Martin that I think about,
Lex Fridman (1:11:40.600)
what are the technologies that we have to invest in?
Keoki Jackson (1:11:42.720)
Whether it's things like AI and autonomy,
Lex Fridman (1:11:45.280)
you know, you can think about quantum computing,
Keoki Jackson (1:11:47.320)
which is an area that we've invested in
Lex Fridman (1:11:49.140)
to try to stay ahead of these technological changes,
Lex Fridman (1:11:53.540)
and frankly, some of the threats that are out there.
Lex Fridman (1:11:56.320)
I believe that we're gonna be out there in the solar system,
Keoki Jackson (1:11:59.400)
that we're gonna be defending and defending well
Lex Fridman (1:12:02.360)
against probably, you know, military threats
Keoki Jackson (1:12:04.960)
that nobody has even thought about today.
Lex Fridman (1:12:08.120)
We are going to be, we're gonna use these capabilities
Keoki Jackson (1:12:12.400)
to have far greater knowledge of our own planet,
Lex Fridman (1:12:15.720)
the depths of the oceans, you know,
Keoki Jackson (1:12:17.220)
all the way to the upper reaches of the atmosphere
Lex Fridman (1:12:20.120)
and everything out to the sun
Lex Fridman (1:12:21.400)
and to the edge of the solar system.
Lex Fridman (1:12:23.440)
So that's what I look forward to,
Lex Fridman (1:12:26.760)
and I'm excited, I mean, just looking ahead
Lex Fridman (1:12:30.840)
in the next decade or so to the steps
Keoki Jackson (1:12:33.360)
that I see ahead of us in that time.
Lex Fridman (1:12:36.320)
I don't think there's a better place to end,
Keoki Jackson (1:12:38.240)
Keoki, thank you so much.
Lex Fridman (1:12:39.640)
Lex, it's been a real pleasure,
Lex Fridman (1:12:41.100)
and sorry it took so long to get up here,
Lex Fridman (1:12:43.440)
but I'm glad we were able to make it happen.
Keoki Jackson (20:02.180)
that composes, selects and then executes decisions
Lex Fridman (20:08.460)
with varying levels of human intervention.
Lex Fridman (20:12.500)
And so you could think of no autonomy.
Lex Fridman (20:15.660)
So this is essentially the human doing the task.
Keoki Jackson (20:18.460)
You can think of effectively partial autonomy
Lex Fridman (20:23.080)
where the human is in the loop.
Lex Fridman (20:25.820)
So making decisions in every case
Lex Fridman (20:29.140)
about what the autonomous system can do.
Keoki Jackson (20:31.140)
Either in the cockpit or remotely.
Lex Fridman (20:33.220)
Or remotely, exactly, but still in that control loop.
Lex Fridman (20:36.060)
And then there's what you'd call supervisory autonomy.
Lex Fridman (20:39.860)
So the autonomous system is doing most of the work,
Keoki Jackson (20:42.420)
the human can intervene to stop it
Lex Fridman (20:44.380)
or to change the direction.
Lex Fridman (20:45.820)
And then ultimately full autonomy
Lex Fridman (20:47.940)
where the human is off the loop altogether.
Lex Fridman (20:50.300)
And for different types of missions
Lex Fridman (20:52.860)
wanna have different levels of autonomy.
Lex Fridman (20:55.820)
So now take that spectrum and this conviction
Lex Fridman (20:58.380)
that autonomy and more and more AI
Keoki Jackson (21:01.220)
are in everything that we develop.
Lex Fridman (21:05.100)
The kinds of things that Lockheed Martin does,
Keoki Jackson (21:07.980)
a lot of times are safety of life critical kinds of missions.
Lex Fridman (21:12.380)
You think about aircraft, for example.
Lex Fridman (21:15.980)
And so we require and our customers require
Lex Fridman (21:20.100)
an extremely high level of confidence.
Keoki Jackson (21:23.260)
One, that we're gonna protect life.
Lex Fridman (21:26.420)
Two, that these systems will behave
Keoki Jackson (21:30.680)
in ways that their operators can understand.
Lex Fridman (21:33.900)
And so this gets into that whole field.
Keoki Jackson (21:36.420)
Again, being able to verify and validate
Lex Fridman (21:40.340)
that the systems have been and that they will operate
Keoki Jackson (21:44.980)
the way they're designed and the way they're expected.
Lex Fridman (21:48.100)
And furthermore, that they will do that
Keoki Jackson (21:50.740)
in ways that can be explained and understood.
Lex Fridman (21:55.460)
And that is an extremely difficult challenge.
Keoki Jackson (21:58.860)
Yeah, so here's a difficult question.
Lex Fridman (22:00.840)
I don't mean to bring this up,
Lex Fridman (22:04.420)
but I think it's a good case study
Lex Fridman (22:05.640)
that people are familiar with the Boeing 737 Max
Keoki Jackson (22:10.060)
commercial airplane has had two recent crashes
Lex Fridman (22:13.420)
where their flight control software system failed
Lex Fridman (22:15.980)
and it's software.
Lex Fridman (22:17.540)
So I don't mean to speak about Boeing,
Lex Fridman (22:19.060)
but broadly speaking, we have this
Lex Fridman (22:21.020)
in the autonomous vehicle space too, semi autonomous.
Keoki Jackson (22:24.060)
We have millions of lines of code software making decisions.
Lex Fridman (22:30.420)
There is a little bit of a clash of cultures
Keoki Jackson (22:32.900)
because software engineers don't have the same culture
Lex Fridman (22:37.060)
of safety often that people who build systems
Keoki Jackson (22:41.860)
like at Lockheed Martin do where it has to be
Lex Fridman (22:45.540)
exceptionally safe, you have to test this on.
Lex Fridman (22:48.100)
So how do we get this right when software
Lex Fridman (22:50.580)
is making so many decisions?
Keoki Jackson (22:53.180)
Yeah, and there's a lot of things that have to happen.
Lex Fridman (22:57.140)
And by and large, I think it starts with the culture,
Keoki Jackson (23:01.260)
which is not necessarily something that A,
Lex Fridman (23:04.500)
is taught in school or B is something that would come,
Keoki Jackson (23:07.980)
depending on what kind of software you're developing,
Lex Fridman (23:10.820)
it may not be relevant, right?
Keoki Jackson (23:13.100)
If you're targeting ads or something like that.
Lex Fridman (23:15.740)
So, and by and large, I'd say not just Lockheed Martin,
Lex Fridman (23:20.600)
but certainly the aerospace industry as a whole
Lex Fridman (23:23.700)
has developed a culture that does focus on safety,
Keoki Jackson (23:27.240)
safety of life, operational safety, mission success.
Lex Fridman (23:31.000)
But as you note, these systems
Keoki Jackson (23:34.080)
have gotten incredibly complex.
Lex Fridman (23:36.160)
And so they're to the point where it's almost impossible,
Keoki Jackson (23:40.520)
you know, state spaces become so huge
Lex Fridman (23:42.600)
that it's impossible to, or very difficult
Keoki Jackson (23:45.920)
to do a systematic verification across the entire set
Lex Fridman (23:50.880)
of potential ways that an aircraft could be flown,
Keoki Jackson (23:53.760)
all the conditions that could happen,
Lex Fridman (23:55.600)
all the potential failure scenarios.
Keoki Jackson (23:59.340)
Now, maybe that's soluble one day,
Lex Fridman (24:01.140)
maybe when we have our quantum computers
Keoki Jackson (24:03.400)
at our fingertips, we'll be able to actually
Lex Fridman (24:06.920)
simulate across an entire, you know,
Keoki Jackson (24:09.280)
almost infinite state space.
Lex Fridman (24:11.300)
But today, you know, there's a lot of work
Keoki Jackson (24:16.320)
to really try to bound the system,
Lex Fridman (24:20.980)
to make sure that it behaves in predictable ways,
Lex Fridman (24:24.800)
and then have this culture of continuous inquiry
Lex Fridman (24:29.100)
and skepticism and questioning to say,
Lex Fridman (24:33.200)
did we really consider the right realm of possibilities?
Lex Fridman (24:37.320)
Have we done the right range of testing?
Keoki Jackson (24:40.160)
Do we really understand, you know, in this case,
Lex Fridman (24:42.160)
you know, human and machine interactions,
Lex Fridman (24:44.640)
the human decision process alongside the machine processes?
Lex Fridman (24:49.480)
And so that's that culture,
Keoki Jackson (24:51.640)
we call it the culture of mission success at Lockheed Martin
Lex Fridman (24:54.960)
that really needs to be established.
Lex Fridman (24:56.720)
And it's not something, you know,
Lex Fridman (24:57.960)
it's something that people learn by living in it.
Lex Fridman (25:02.160)
And it's something that has to be promulgated, you know,
Lex Fridman (25:05.200)
and it's done, you know, from the highest levels
Keoki Jackson (25:07.600)
at a company of Lockheed Martin, like Lockheed Martin.
Lex Fridman (25:10.200)
Yeah, and the same is being faced
Keoki Jackson (25:12.520)
at certain autonomous vehicle companies
Lex Fridman (25:14.040)
where that culture is not there
Keoki Jackson (25:15.820)
because it started mostly by software engineers.
Lex Fridman (25:18.640)
So that's what they're struggling with.
Keoki Jackson (25:21.480)
Is there lessons that you think we should learn
Lex Fridman (25:25.720)
as an industry and a society from the Boeing 737 MAX crashes?
Keoki Jackson (25:30.240)
These crashes obviously are tremendous tragedies.
Lex Fridman (25:34.720)
They're tragedies for all of the people,
Keoki Jackson (25:37.840)
the crew, the families, the passengers,
Lex Fridman (25:41.240)
the people on the ground involved.
Keoki Jackson (25:44.280)
And, you know, it's also a huge business
Lex Fridman (25:47.480)
and economic setback as well.
Keoki Jackson (25:49.080)
I mean, you know, we've seen that it's impacting
Lex Fridman (25:51.120)
essentially the trade balance of the US.
Lex Fridman (25:53.840)
So these are important questions.
Lex Fridman (25:58.400)
And these are the kinds that, you know,
Keoki Jackson (26:00.200)
we've seen similar kinds of questioning at times.
Lex Fridman (26:03.040)
You know, you go back to the Challenger accident.
Lex Fridman (26:06.920)
And it is, I think, always important to remind ourselves
Lex Fridman (26:10.600)
that humans are fallible, that the systems we create,
Keoki Jackson (26:14.000)
as perfect as we strive to make them,
Lex Fridman (26:16.540)
we can always make them better.
Lex Fridman (26:18.920)
And so another element of that culture of mission success
Lex Fridman (26:21.720)
is really that commitment to continuous improvement.
Keoki Jackson (26:24.960)
If there's something that goes wrong,
Lex Fridman (26:27.480)
a real commitment to root cause
Lex Fridman (26:31.120)
and true root cause understanding,
Lex Fridman (26:33.320)
to taking the corrective actions
Lex Fridman (26:35.080)
and to making the future systems better.
Lex Fridman (26:38.880)
And certainly we strive for, you know, no accidents.
Lex Fridman (26:45.120)
And if you look at the record
Lex Fridman (26:47.720)
of the commercial airline industry as a whole
Lex Fridman (26:50.440)
and the commercial aircraft industry as a whole,
Lex Fridman (26:52.960)
you know, there's a very nice decaying exponential
Keoki Jackson (26:57.600)
to years now where we have
Lex Fridman (26:59.120)
no commercial aircraft accidents at all, right?
Keoki Jackson (27:02.920)
Fatal accidents at all.
Lex Fridman (27:04.720)
So that didn't happen by accident.
Keoki Jackson (27:08.320)
It was through the regulatory agencies, FAA,
Lex Fridman (27:11.640)
the airframe manufacturers really working on a system
Keoki Jackson (27:16.040)
to identify root causes and drive them out.
Lex Fridman (27:20.480)
So maybe we can take a step back
Lex Fridman (27:23.840)
and many people are familiar, but Lockheed Martin broadly,
Lex Fridman (27:28.840)
what kind of categories of systems
Lex Fridman (27:32.100)
are you involved in building?
Lex Fridman (27:34.260)
You know, Lockheed Martin, we think of ourselves
Keoki Jackson (27:36.240)
as a company that solves hard mission problems.
Lex Fridman (27:39.880)
And the output of that might be an airplane or a spacecraft
Keoki Jackson (27:43.040)
or a helicopter or a radar or something like that.
Lex Fridman (27:45.680)
But ultimately we're driven by these, you know,
Lex Fridman (27:48.600)
what is our customer?
Lex Fridman (27:50.240)
What is that mission that they need to achieve?
Lex Fridman (27:52.760)
And so that's what drove the SR71, right?
Lex Fridman (27:55.520)
How do you get pictures of a place
Keoki Jackson (27:59.040)
where you've got sophisticated air defense systems
Lex Fridman (28:02.200)
that are capable of handling any aircraft
Lex Fridman (28:05.480)
that was out there at the time, right?
Lex Fridman (28:07.480)
So that, you know, that's what yielded an SR71.
Keoki Jackson (28:10.480)
Let's build a nice flying camera.
Lex Fridman (28:12.500)
Exactly.
Lex Fridman (28:13.340)
And make sure it gets out and it gets back, right?
Lex Fridman (28:15.960)
And that led ultimately to really the start
Keoki Jackson (28:18.320)
of the space program in the US as well.
Lex Fridman (28:22.240)
So now take a step back to Lockheed Martin of today.
Lex Fridman (28:24.960)
And we are, you know, on the order of 105 years old now
Lex Fridman (28:29.080)
between Lockheed and Martin, the two big heritage companies.
Keoki Jackson (28:32.440)
Of course, we're made up of a whole bunch
Lex Fridman (28:33.600)
of other companies that came in as well.
Keoki Jackson (28:36.160)
General Dynamics, you know, kind of go down the list.
Lex Fridman (28:39.000)
Today, you can think of us in this space
Keoki Jackson (28:43.460)
of solving mission problems.
Lex Fridman (28:44.860)
So obviously on the aircraft side, tactical aircraft,
Keoki Jackson (28:50.140)
building the most advanced fighter aircraft
Lex Fridman (28:53.020)
that the world has ever seen.
Keoki Jackson (28:55.140)
We're up to now several hundred of those delivered,
Lex Fridman (28:57.940)
building almost a hundred a year.
Lex Fridman (29:00.140)
And of course, working on the things that come after that.
Lex Fridman (29:04.140)
On the space side, we are engaged
Keoki Jackson (29:06.700)
in pretty much every venue of space utilization
Lex Fridman (29:12.380)
and exploration you can imagine.
Lex Fridman (29:14.300)
So I mentioned things like navigation and timing GPS,
Lex Fridman (29:18.100)
communication satellites, missile warning satellites.
Keoki Jackson (29:22.460)
We've built commercial surveillance satellites.
Lex Fridman (29:24.820)
We've built commercial communication satellites.
Keoki Jackson (29:27.700)
We do civil space.
Lex Fridman (29:29.260)
So everything from human exploration
Keoki Jackson (29:32.360)
to the robotic exploration of the outer planets.
Lex Fridman (29:35.040)
And keep going on the space front.
Lex Fridman (29:39.120)
But a couple of other areas that I'd like to put out,
Lex Fridman (29:42.520)
we're heavily engaged in building
Keoki Jackson (29:45.560)
critical defensive systems.
Lex Fridman (29:47.440)
And so a couple that I'll mention, the Aegis Combat System.
Keoki Jackson (29:51.680)
This is basically the integrated air and missile defense
Lex Fridman (29:54.600)
system for the US and allied fleets.
Lex Fridman (29:58.660)
And so protects carrier strike groups, for example,
Lex Fridman (30:03.660)
from incoming ballistic missile threats,
Keoki Jackson (30:06.380)
aircraft threats, cruise missile threats,
Lex Fridman (30:08.300)
and kind of go down the list.
Lex Fridman (30:09.900)
So the carriers, the fleet itself
Lex Fridman (30:13.060)
is the thing that is being protected.
Keoki Jackson (30:15.300)
The carriers aren't serving
Lex Fridman (30:17.180)
as a protection for something else.
Keoki Jackson (30:19.180)
Well, that's a little bit of a different application.
Lex Fridman (30:21.660)
We've actually built the version called Aegis Ashore,
Keoki Jackson (30:24.180)
which is now deployed in a couple of places around the world.
Lex Fridman (30:27.740)
So that same technology, I mean, basically can be used
Keoki Jackson (30:32.300)
to protect either an ocean going fleet
Lex Fridman (30:35.180)
or a land based activity.
Keoki Jackson (30:37.620)
Another one, the THAAD program.
Lex Fridman (30:40.860)
So THAAD, this is the Theater High Altitude Area Defense.
Keoki Jackson (30:45.420)
This is to protect relatively broad areas
Lex Fridman (30:49.500)
against sophisticated ballistic missile threats.
Lex Fridman (30:53.900)
And so now it's deployed with a lot of US capabilities.
Lex Fridman (30:58.900)
And now we have international customers
Keoki Jackson (31:00.980)
that are looking to buy that capability as well.
Lex Fridman (31:03.300)
And so these are systems that defend,
Keoki Jackson (31:05.900)
not just defend militaries and military capabilities,
Lex Fridman (31:09.020)
but defend population areas.
Keoki Jackson (31:12.300)
We saw maybe the first public use of these
Lex Fridman (31:15.900)
back in the first Gulf War with the Patriot Systems.
Lex Fridman (31:20.820)
And these are the kinds of things
Lex Fridman (31:22.700)
that Lockheed Martin delivers.
Lex Fridman (31:25.580)
And there's a lot of stuff that goes into it.
Lex Fridman (31:28.100)
A lot of stuff that goes with it.
Lex Fridman (31:29.540)
So think about the radar systems and the sensing systems
Lex Fridman (31:33.100)
that cue these, the command and control systems
Keoki Jackson (31:36.740)
that decide how you pair a weapon
Lex Fridman (31:39.340)
against an incoming threat.
Lex Fridman (31:42.300)
And then all the human and machine interfaces
Lex Fridman (31:45.420)
to make sure that they can be operated successfully
Keoki Jackson (31:48.060)
in very strenuous environments.
Lex Fridman (31:51.060)
Yeah, there's some incredible engineering
Keoki Jackson (31:54.660)
that at every front, like you said.
Lex Fridman (31:57.260)
So maybe if we just take a look at Lockheed history broadly,
Keoki Jackson (32:03.500)
maybe even looking at Skunk Works.
Lex Fridman (32:06.940)
What are the biggest,
Lex Fridman (32:08.540)
most impressive milestones of innovation?
Lex Fridman (32:11.220)
So if you look at stealth, I would have called you crazy
Keoki Jackson (32:14.900)
if you said that's possible at the time.
Lex Fridman (32:17.980)
And supersonic and hypersonic.
Lex Fridman (32:21.340)
So traveling at, first of all,
Lex Fridman (32:24.100)
traveling at the speed of sound is pretty damn fast.
Lex Fridman (32:27.660)
And supersonic and hypersonic,
Lex Fridman (32:29.780)
three, four, five times the speed of sound.
Keoki Jackson (32:32.260)
That seems, I would also call you crazy
Lex Fridman (32:34.460)
if you say you can do that.
Lex Fridman (32:35.820)
So can you tell me how it's possible
Lex Fridman (32:38.140)
to do these kinds of things?
Lex Fridman (32:39.620)
And is there other milestones and innovation
Lex Fridman (32:43.100)
that's going on that you can talk about?
Keoki Jackson (32:45.100)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (32:45.980)
Well, let me start on the Skunk Works saga.
Lex Fridman (32:49.060)
And you kind of alluded to it in the beginning.
Lex Fridman (32:51.620)
Skunk Works is as much an idea as a place.
Lex Fridman (32:54.780)
And so it's driven really by Kelly Johnson's 14 principles.
Lex Fridman (32:59.380)
And I'm not gonna list all 14 of them off,
Lex Fridman (33:01.860)
but the idea, and this I'm sure will resonate
Lex Fridman (33:04.340)
with any engineer who's worked
Keoki Jackson (33:06.100)
on a highly motivated small team before.
Lex Fridman (33:09.300)
The idea that if you can essentially have a small team
Keoki Jackson (33:13.260)
of very capable people who wanna work
Lex Fridman (33:17.140)
on really hard problems, you can do almost anything.
Keoki Jackson (33:20.380)
Especially if you kind of shield them
Lex Fridman (33:23.140)
from bureaucratic influences,
Keoki Jackson (33:26.500)
if you create very tight relationships with your customers
Lex Fridman (33:30.580)
so that you have that team
Lex Fridman (33:32.860)
and shared vision with the customer.
Lex Fridman (33:35.860)
Those are the kinds of things that enable the Skunk Works
Keoki Jackson (33:40.220)
to do these incredible things.
Lex Fridman (33:42.860)
And we listed off a number that you brought up stealth.
Lex Fridman (33:46.180)
And I wish I could have seen Ben Rich with a ball bearing
Lex Fridman (33:51.540)
rolling it across the desk to a general officer
Lex Fridman (33:54.940)
and saying, would you like to have an aircraft
Lex Fridman (33:58.220)
that has the radar cross section of this ball bearing?
Keoki Jackson (34:01.620)
Probably one of the least expensive
Lex Fridman (34:04.100)
and most effective marketing campaigns
Keoki Jackson (34:06.100)
in the history of the industry.
Lex Fridman (34:08.220)
So just for people that are not familiar,
Keoki Jackson (34:10.740)
the way you detect aircraft,
Lex Fridman (34:13.020)
I'm sure there's a lot of ways,
Lex Fridman (34:14.500)
but radar for the longest time,
Lex Fridman (34:17.340)
there's a big blob that appears in the radar.
Lex Fridman (34:20.660)
How do you make a plane disappear
Lex Fridman (34:22.380)
so it looks as big as a ball bearing?
Lex Fridman (34:26.180)
What's involved in technology wise there?
Lex Fridman (34:28.020)
What's the broadly sort of the stuff you can speak about?
Keoki Jackson (34:32.460)
I'll stick to what's in Ben Rich's book.
Lex Fridman (34:34.860)
But obviously the geometry of how radar gets reflected
Lex Fridman (34:39.020)
and the kinds of materials that either reflect or absorb
Lex Fridman (34:42.460)
are kind of the couple of the critical elements there.
Lex Fridman (34:46.500)
And it's a cat and mouse game, right?
Lex Fridman (34:48.100)
I mean, you know, radars get better,
Keoki Jackson (34:51.300)
stealth capabilities get better.
Lex Fridman (34:52.980)
And so it's a really a game
Keoki Jackson (34:55.740)
of continuous improvement and innovation there.
Lex Fridman (34:58.500)
I'll leave it at that.
Keoki Jackson (35:00.180)
Yeah, so the idea that something is essentially invisible
Lex Fridman (35:04.780)
is quite fascinating.
Lex Fridman (35:06.460)
But the other one is flying fast.
Lex Fridman (35:08.980)
So speed of sound is 750, 60 miles an hour.
Lex Fridman (35:15.340)
So supersonic is three, you know, Mach three,
Lex Fridman (35:18.500)
something like that.
Keoki Jackson (35:19.340)
Yeah, we talk about the supersonic obviously,
Lex Fridman (35:21.620)
and we kind of talk about that as that realm from Mach one
Keoki Jackson (35:24.940)
up through about Mach five and then hypersonic.
Lex Fridman (35:28.500)
So, you know, high supersonic speeds would be past Mach five.
Lex Fridman (35:34.780)
And you got to remember Lockheed Martin
Lex Fridman (35:37.140)
and actually other companies have been involved
Keoki Jackson (35:39.100)
in hypersonic development since the late 60s.
Lex Fridman (35:42.300)
You know, you think of everything from the X 15
Keoki Jackson (35:45.380)
to the space shuttle as examples of that.
Lex Fridman (35:50.100)
I think the difference now is if you look around the world,
Keoki Jackson (35:54.380)
particularly the threat environment that we're in today,
Lex Fridman (35:57.380)
you're starting to see, you know, publicly,
Keoki Jackson (36:01.540)
folks like the Russians and the Chinese
Lex Fridman (36:03.580)
saying they have hypersonic weapons capability
Keoki Jackson (36:08.340)
that could threaten US and allied capabilities.
Lex Fridman (36:14.260)
And also basically, you know, the claims are
Keoki Jackson (36:17.220)
these could get around defensive systems
Lex Fridman (36:19.860)
that are out there today.
Lex Fridman (36:21.820)
And so there's a real sense of urgency.
Lex Fridman (36:24.500)
You hear it from folks like the undersecretary of defense
Keoki Jackson (36:28.140)
for research and engineering, Dr. Mike Griffin,
Lex Fridman (36:30.780)
and others in the department of defense that hypersonics
Keoki Jackson (36:33.940)
is something that's really important to the nation
Lex Fridman (36:39.620)
in terms of both parity, but also defensive capabilities.
Lex Fridman (36:43.100)
And so that's something that, you know, we're pleased.
Lex Fridman (36:46.220)
It's something that Lockheed Martin's, you know,
Keoki Jackson (36:47.860)
had a heritage in, we've invested R and D dollars
Lex Fridman (36:51.620)
on our side for many years.
Lex Fridman (36:53.780)
And we have a number of things going on
Lex Fridman (36:56.220)
with various US government customers in that field today
Keoki Jackson (36:59.740)
that we're very excited about.
Lex Fridman (37:01.540)
So I would anticipate we'll be hearing more about that
Keoki Jackson (37:04.520)
in the future from our customers.
Lex Fridman (37:06.260)
And I've actually haven't read much about this.
Keoki Jackson (37:08.860)
Probably you can't talk about much of it at all,
Lex Fridman (37:10.860)
but on the defensive side,
Keoki Jackson (37:12.780)
it's a fascinating problem of perception
Lex Fridman (37:15.600)
of trying to detect things that are really hard to see.
Lex Fridman (37:18.380)
Can you comment on how hard that problem is
Lex Fridman (37:21.540)
and how hard is it to stay ahead,
Keoki Jackson (37:26.660)
even if we go back a few decades,
Lex Fridman (37:29.180)
stay ahead of the competition?
Keoki Jackson (37:30.500)
Well, maybe I'd, again, you gotta think of these
Lex Fridman (37:33.700)
as ongoing capability development.
Lex Fridman (37:36.500)
And so think back to the early days of missile defense.
Lex Fridman (37:40.740)
So this would be in the 80s, the SDI program.
Lex Fridman (37:44.140)
And in that timeframe, we proved and Lockheed Martin proved
Lex Fridman (37:47.460)
that you could hit a bullet with a bullet, essentially,
Lex Fridman (37:50.260)
and which is something that had never been done before
Lex Fridman (37:53.220)
to take out an incoming ballistic missile.
Lex Fridman (37:56.180)
And so that's led to these incredible hit to kill
Lex Fridman (37:59.300)
kinds of capabilities, PAC 3.
Keoki Jackson (38:03.100)
That's the Patriot Advanced Capability Model 3
Lex Fridman (38:06.980)
that Lockheed Martin builds,
Keoki Jackson (38:08.120)
the THAAD system that I talked about.
Lex Fridman (38:12.080)
So now hypersonics, they're different from ballistic systems.
Lex Fridman (38:17.520)
And so we gotta take the next step in defensive capability.
Lex Fridman (38:21.120)
I can, I'll leave that there, but I can only imagine.
Keoki Jackson (38:26.520)
Now, let me just comment sort of as an engineer,
Lex Fridman (38:29.160)
it's sad to know that so much that Lockheed has done
Keoki Jackson (38:33.440)
in the past is classified or today,
Lex Fridman (38:38.840)
and it's shrouded in secrecy.
Keoki Jackson (38:40.940)
It has to be by the nature of the application.
Lex Fridman (38:46.200)
So like what I do, so what we do here at MIT,
Keoki Jackson (38:49.200)
we would like to inspire young engineers, young scientists,
Lex Fridman (38:53.920)
and yet in the Lockheed case,
Keoki Jackson (38:56.480)
some of that engineer has to stay quiet.
Lex Fridman (38:59.720)
How do you think about that?
Lex Fridman (39:00.920)
How does that make you feel?
Lex Fridman (39:02.120)
Is there a future where more can be shown
Keoki Jackson (39:08.120)
or is it just the nature of this world
Lex Fridman (39:11.240)
that it has to remain secret?
Keoki Jackson (39:13.400)
It's a good question.
Lex Fridman (39:15.680)
I think the public can see enough of,
Lex Fridman (39:21.840)
and including students who may be in grade school,
Lex Fridman (39:25.600)
high school, college today,
Keoki Jackson (39:28.840)
to understand the kinds of really hard problems
Lex Fridman (39:32.440)
that we work on.
Lex Fridman (39:34.120)
And I mean, look at the F35, right?
Lex Fridman (39:36.840)
And obviously a lot of the detailed performance levels
Keoki Jackson (39:41.320)
are sensitive and controlled.
Lex Fridman (39:43.880)
But we can talk about what an incredible aircraft this is,
Keoki Jackson (39:48.760)
supersonic, super cruise, kind of a fighter,
Lex Fridman (39:53.600)
stealth capabilities.
Keoki Jackson (39:55.200)
It's a flying information system in the sky
Lex Fridman (39:58.600)
with data fusion, sensor fusion capabilities
Keoki Jackson (40:02.160)
that have never been seen before.
Lex Fridman (40:03.820)
So these are the kinds of things that I believe,
Keoki Jackson (40:06.240)
these are the kinds of things that got me excited
Lex Fridman (40:08.000)
when I was a student.
Keoki Jackson (40:08.960)
I think these still inspire students today.
Lex Fridman (40:12.240)
And the other thing I'd say,
Keoki Jackson (40:14.080)
I mean, people are inspired by space.
Lex Fridman (40:17.040)
People are inspired by aircraft.
Keoki Jackson (40:21.980)
Our employees are also inspired by that sense of mission.
Lex Fridman (40:25.360)
And I'll just give you an example.
Keoki Jackson (40:27.560)
I had the privilege to work
Lex Fridman (40:30.840)
and lead our GPS programs for some time.
Lex Fridman (40:34.400)
And that was a case where I actually worked on a program
Lex Fridman (40:39.200)
that touches billions of people every day.
Lex Fridman (40:41.760)
And so when I said, I worked on GPS,
Lex Fridman (40:43.520)
everybody knew what I was talking about,
Keoki Jackson (40:45.280)
even though they didn't maybe appreciate
Lex Fridman (40:46.900)
the technical challenges that went into that.
Lex Fridman (40:51.440)
But I'll tell you, I got a briefing one time
Lex Fridman (40:55.020)
from a major in the Air Force.
Lex Fridman (40:57.480)
And he said, I go by callsign GIMP, GPS is my passion.
Lex Fridman (41:04.720)
I love GPS.
Lex Fridman (41:05.760)
And he was involved in the operational test of the system.
Lex Fridman (41:09.000)
And he said, I was out in Iraq,
Lex Fridman (41:11.720)
and I was on a helicopter, Blackhawk helicopter,
Lex Fridman (41:17.480)
and I was bringing back a sergeant
Lex Fridman (41:20.480)
and a handful of troops from a deployed location.
Lex Fridman (41:23.840)
And he said, my job is GPS.
Lex Fridman (41:26.640)
So I asked that sergeant,
Lex Fridman (41:27.880)
and he's beaten down and kind of half asleep.
Lex Fridman (41:31.420)
And I said, what do you think about GPS?
Lex Fridman (41:34.120)
And he brightened up, his eyes lit up,
Lex Fridman (41:36.000)
and he said, well, GPS,
Lex Fridman (41:37.640)
that brings me and my troops home every day.
Keoki Jackson (41:40.000)
I love GPS.
Lex Fridman (41:41.160)
And that's the kind of story where it's like,
Keoki Jackson (41:43.020)
okay, I'm really making a difference here
Lex Fridman (41:45.680)
in the kind of work.
Lex Fridman (41:46.520)
So that mission piece is really important.
Lex Fridman (41:49.000)
The last thing I'll say is,
Lex Fridman (41:51.120)
and this gets to some of these questions
Lex Fridman (41:53.800)
around advanced technologies.
Keoki Jackson (41:56.180)
It's not, they're not just airplanes
Lex Fridman (41:58.800)
and spacecraft anymore.
Keoki Jackson (42:00.020)
For people who are excited
Lex Fridman (42:01.480)
about advanced software capabilities,
Keoki Jackson (42:03.540)
about AI, about bringing machine learning,
Lex Fridman (42:06.080)
these are the things that we're doing
Keoki Jackson (42:08.280)
to exponentially increase the mission capabilities
Lex Fridman (42:13.000)
that go on those platforms.
Lex Fridman (42:14.400)
And those are the kinds of things
Lex Fridman (42:15.600)
that I think are more and more visible to the public.
Keoki Jackson (42:18.480)
Yeah, I think autonomy, especially in flight,
Lex Fridman (42:21.540)
is super exciting.
Lex Fridman (42:23.120)
Do you see a day, here we go, back into philosophy,
Lex Fridman (42:28.160)
future when most fighter jets
Keoki Jackson (42:30.200)
will be highly autonomous to a degree
Lex Fridman (42:35.720)
where a human doesn't need to be in the cockpit
Lex Fridman (42:38.900)
in almost all cases?
Lex Fridman (42:40.640)
Well, I mean, that's a world
Keoki Jackson (42:42.400)
that to a certain extent we're in today.
Lex Fridman (42:44.240)
Now these are remotely piloted aircraft, to be sure.
Lex Fridman (42:47.820)
But we have hundreds of thousands of flight hours a year now
Lex Fridman (42:53.920)
in remotely piloted aircraft.
Lex Fridman (42:55.800)
And then if you take the F35,
Lex Fridman (42:58.440)
there are huge layers, I guess,
Keoki Jackson (43:03.580)
in levels of autonomy built into that aircraft
Lex Fridman (43:06.260)
so that the pilot is essentially more of a mission manager
Keoki Jackson (43:11.900)
rather than doing the data,
Lex Fridman (43:13.780)
the second to second elements of flying the aircraft.
Lex Fridman (43:17.220)
So in some ways it's the easiest aircraft
Lex Fridman (43:19.540)
in the world to fly.
Lex Fridman (43:20.860)
And kind of a funny story on that.
Lex Fridman (43:22.540)
So I don't know if you know
Lex Fridman (43:23.980)
how aircraft carrier landings work,
Lex Fridman (43:27.320)
but basically there's what's called a tail hook
Lex Fridman (43:30.860)
and it catches wires on the deck of the carrier.
Lex Fridman (43:33.820)
And that's what brings the aircraft
Lex Fridman (43:37.340)
to a screeching halt, right?
Lex Fridman (43:39.440)
And there's typically three of these wires.
Lex Fridman (43:41.860)
So if you miss the first, the second one,
Lex Fridman (43:43.540)
you catch the next one, right?
Lex Fridman (43:45.980)
And we got a little criticism.
Lex Fridman (43:49.580)
I don't know how true this story is,
Lex Fridman (43:50.940)
but we got a little criticism.
Lex Fridman (43:52.460)
The F35 is so perfect, it always gets the second wires.
Keoki Jackson (43:56.260)
We're wearing out the wire because it always hits that one.
Lex Fridman (44:00.940)
But that's the kind of autonomy that just makes these,
Keoki Jackson (44:04.660)
essentially up levels what the human is doing
Lex Fridman (44:06.980)
to more of that mission manager.
Lex Fridman (44:08.620)
So much of that landing by the F35 is autonomous.
Lex Fridman (44:12.140)
Well, it's just, the control systems are such
Keoki Jackson (44:14.500)
that you really have dialed out the variability
Lex Fridman (44:18.020)
that comes with all the environmental conditions.
Keoki Jackson (44:20.020)
You're wearing it out.
Lex Fridman (44:20.860)
So my point is to a certain extent,
Keoki Jackson (44:24.380)
that world is here today.
Lex Fridman (44:27.420)
Do I think that we're gonna see a day anytime soon
Lex Fridman (44:30.060)
when there are no humans in the cockpit?
Lex Fridman (44:31.900)
I don't believe that.
Lex Fridman (44:33.420)
But I do think we're gonna see much more
Lex Fridman (44:35.940)
human machine teaming, and we're gonna see that much more
Keoki Jackson (44:38.820)
at the tactical edge.
Lex Fridman (44:40.580)
And we did a demo, and you asked about
Lex Fridman (44:42.100)
what the Skunk Works is doing these days.
Lex Fridman (44:43.840)
And so this is something I can talk about,
Lex Fridman (44:46.260)
but we did a demo with the Air Force Research Laboratory.
Lex Fridman (44:51.300)
We called it Have Raider.
Lex Fridman (44:52.700)
And so using an F16 as an autonomous wingman,
Lex Fridman (44:59.860)
and we demonstrated all kinds of maneuvers
Lex Fridman (45:02.540)
and various mission scenarios with the autonomous F16
Lex Fridman (45:06.340)
being that so called loyal or trusted wingman.
Lex Fridman (45:09.540)
And so those are the kinds of things that,
Lex Fridman (45:12.140)
we've shown what is possible now.
Keoki Jackson (45:15.500)
Given that you've up leveled that pilot
Lex Fridman (45:17.940)
to be a mission manager, now they can control
Keoki Jackson (45:20.380)
multiple other aircraft.
Lex Fridman (45:22.340)
Think of them almost as extensions of your own aircraft
Keoki Jackson (45:25.100)
flying alongside with you.
Lex Fridman (45:27.220)
So that's another example of how this is really
Keoki Jackson (45:30.340)
coming to fruition.
Lex Fridman (45:31.580)
And then I mentioned the landings,
Lex Fridman (45:35.220)
but think about just the implications for humans
Lex Fridman (45:39.100)
and flight safety, and this goes a little bit back
Keoki Jackson (45:41.100)
to the discussion we were having about
Lex Fridman (45:43.340)
how do you continuously improve the level of safety
Keoki Jackson (45:47.820)
through automation while working through the complexities
Lex Fridman (45:51.400)
that automation introduces.
Lex Fridman (45:53.420)
So one of the challenges that you have
Lex Fridman (45:54.820)
in high performance fighter aircraft is what's called G lock.
Lex Fridman (45:57.540)
So this is G induced loss of consciousness.
Lex Fridman (46:00.060)
So you pull nine Gs, you're wearing a pressure suit,
Keoki Jackson (46:02.900)
that's not enough to keep the blood going to your brain,
Lex Fridman (46:05.860)
you black out.
Lex Fridman (46:07.860)
And of course that's bad if you happen to be flying low,
Lex Fridman (46:12.400)
near the deck and in an obstacle or terrain environment.
Lex Fridman (46:17.400)
And so we developed a system in our aeronautics division
Lex Fridman (46:22.480)
called Auto Gcast, so autonomous ground collision
Keoki Jackson (46:25.560)
avoidance system.
Lex Fridman (46:27.480)
And we built that into the F16.
Keoki Jackson (46:30.120)
It's actually saved seven aircraft, eight pilots already
Lex Fridman (46:33.080)
in a relatively short time it's been deployed.
Keoki Jackson (46:35.920)
It was so successful that the Air Force said,
Lex Fridman (46:39.360)
hey, we need to have this in the F35 right away.
Lex Fridman (46:41.500)
So we've actually done testing of that now on the F35.
Lex Fridman (46:45.420)
And we've also integrated an autonomous
Keoki Jackson (46:49.360)
air collision avoidance system.
Lex Fridman (46:51.040)
So think the air to air problem.
Lex Fridman (46:52.960)
So now it's the integrated collision avoidance system.
Lex Fridman (46:56.080)
But these are the kinds of capabilities,
Keoki Jackson (46:58.800)
I wouldn't call them AI.
Lex Fridman (46:59.960)
I mean, they're very sophisticated models
Keoki Jackson (47:04.080)
of the aircraft dynamics coupled with the terrain models
Lex Fridman (47:08.120)
to be able to predict when essentially the pilot
Keoki Jackson (47:12.160)
is doing something that is gonna take the aircraft
Lex Fridman (47:14.640)
or the pilot's not doing something in this case.
Lex Fridman (47:18.160)
But it just gives you an example of how autonomy
Lex Fridman (47:22.560)
can be really a lifesaver in today's world.
Keoki Jackson (47:25.960)
It's like a autonomous automated emergency braking in cars.
Lex Fridman (47:30.560)
But is there any exploration of perception of,
Lex Fridman (47:34.640)
for example, detecting a G lock that the pilot is out?
Lex Fridman (47:39.680)
So as opposed to perceiving the external environment
Keoki Jackson (47:43.000)
to infer that the pilot is out,
Lex Fridman (47:44.480)
but actually perceiving the pilot directly.
Keoki Jackson (47:47.400)
Yeah, this is one of those cases
Lex Fridman (47:48.760)
where you'd like to not take action
Keoki Jackson (47:50.800)
if you think the pilot's there.
Lex Fridman (47:52.120)
And it's almost like systems that try to detect
Lex Fridman (47:54.800)
if a driver's falling asleep on the road, right?
Lex Fridman (47:57.740)
With limited success.
Keoki Jackson (48:00.040)
So, I mean, this is what I call
Lex Fridman (48:02.120)
the system of last resort, right?
Keoki Jackson (48:03.800)
Where if the aircraft has determined
Lex Fridman (48:06.980)
that it's going into the terrain, get it out of there.
Lex Fridman (48:10.960)
And this is not something that we're just doing
Lex Fridman (48:13.600)
in the aircraft world.
Lex Fridman (48:15.720)
And I wanted to highlight,
Lex Fridman (48:16.940)
we have a technology we call Matrix,
Lex Fridman (48:18.660)
but this is developed at Sikorsky Innovations.
Lex Fridman (48:22.000)
The whole idea there is what we call optimal piloting.
Lex Fridman (48:26.120)
So not optional piloting or unpiloted, but optimal piloting.
Lex Fridman (48:32.280)
So an FAA certified system.
Lex Fridman (48:35.120)
So you have a high degree of confidence.
Lex Fridman (48:37.480)
It's generally pretty deterministic.
Lex Fridman (48:40.600)
So we know that it'll do in different situations,
Lex Fridman (48:43.940)
but effectively be able to fly a mission
Keoki Jackson (48:48.160)
with two pilots, one pilot, no pilots.
Lex Fridman (48:51.560)
And you can think of it almost as like a dial
Keoki Jackson (48:56.080)
of the level of autonomy that you want,
Lex Fridman (48:58.360)
but able, so it's running in the background at all times
Lex Fridman (49:01.340)
and able to pick up tasks,
Lex Fridman (49:03.280)
whether it's sort of autopilot kinds of tasks
Keoki Jackson (49:05.960)
or more sophisticated path planning kinds of activities
Lex Fridman (49:12.080)
to be able to do things like, for example,
Keoki Jackson (49:14.280)
land on an oil rig in the North Sea
Lex Fridman (49:16.960)
in bad weather, zero, zero conditions.
Lex Fridman (49:19.560)
And you can imagine, of course,
Lex Fridman (49:20.780)
there's a lot of military utility to capability like that.
Keoki Jackson (49:24.600)
You could have an aircraft that you want to send out
Lex Fridman (49:27.320)
for a crewed mission, but then at night,
Keoki Jackson (49:29.800)
if you want to use it to deliver supplies
Lex Fridman (49:31.920)
in an unmanned mode, that could be done as well.
Lex Fridman (49:35.600)
And so there's clear advantages there.
Lex Fridman (49:40.040)
But think about on the commercial side,
Keoki Jackson (49:41.880)
if you're an aircraft taken,
Lex Fridman (49:44.440)
you're gonna fly out to this oil rig.
Keoki Jackson (49:46.120)
If you get out there and you can't land,
Lex Fridman (49:48.000)
then you gotta bring all those people back,
Keoki Jackson (49:50.660)
reschedule another flight,
Lex Fridman (49:51.880)
pay the overtime for the crew that you just brought back
Keoki Jackson (49:54.680)
because they didn't get where they were going,
Lex Fridman (49:55.720)
pay for the overtime for the folks
Keoki Jackson (49:57.200)
that are out there in the oil rig.
Lex Fridman (49:58.680)
This is real economic,
Keoki Jackson (50:00.760)
these are dollars and cents kinds of advantages
Lex Fridman (50:03.520)
we're bringing in the commercial world as well.
Lex Fridman (50:06.080)
So here's a difficult question from the AI space
Lex Fridman (50:09.200)
that I would love it if you're able to comment.
Lex Fridman (50:11.680)
So a lot of this autonomy in AI you've mentioned just now
Lex Fridman (50:15.440)
has this empowering effect.
Keoki Jackson (50:17.080)
One is the last resort, it keeps you safe.
Lex Fridman (50:20.420)
The other is there's a, with the teaming
Lex Fridman (50:22.900)
and in general, assistive AI.
Lex Fridman (50:29.080)
And I think there's always a race.
Lex Fridman (50:33.140)
So the world is full of, the world is complex.
Lex Fridman (50:36.960)
It's full of bad actors.
Lex Fridman (50:41.120)
So there's often a race to make sure
Lex Fridman (50:43.640)
that we keep this country safe, right?
Lex Fridman (50:48.700)
But with AI, there is a concern
Lex Fridman (50:52.000)
that it's a slightly different race.
Keoki Jackson (50:55.140)
Though there's a lot of people in the AI space
Lex Fridman (50:56.800)
that are concerned about the AI arms race.
Keoki Jackson (50:59.620)
That as opposed to the United States becoming,
Lex Fridman (51:04.240)
having the best technology and therefore keeping us safe,
Keoki Jackson (51:07.440)
even we lose ability to keep control of it.
Lex Fridman (51:11.560)
So this, the AI arms race getting away
Keoki Jackson (51:14.560)
from all of us humans.
Lex Fridman (51:16.800)
So do you share this worry?
Lex Fridman (51:19.480)
Do you share this concern
Lex Fridman (51:20.680)
when we're talking about military applications
Keoki Jackson (51:23.440)
that too much control and decision making capabilities
Lex Fridman (51:27.280)
giving to software or AI?
Keoki Jackson (51:31.680)
Well, I don't see it happening today.
Lex Fridman (51:34.160)
And in fact, this is something from a policy perspective,
Keoki Jackson (51:38.400)
it's obviously a very dynamic space,
Lex Fridman (51:40.000)
but the Department of Defense has put quite a bit
Keoki Jackson (51:42.440)
of thought into that.
Lex Fridman (51:44.320)
And maybe before talking about the policy,
Keoki Jackson (51:46.600)
I'll just talk about some of the why.
Lex Fridman (51:48.960)
And you alluded to it being a sort of a complicated
Lex Fridman (51:52.280)
and a little bit scary world out there,
Lex Fridman (51:54.080)
but there's some big things happening today.
Keoki Jackson (51:57.360)
You hear a lot of talk now about a return
Lex Fridman (51:59.460)
to great powers competition,
Keoki Jackson (52:01.520)
particularly around China and Russia with the US,
Lex Fridman (52:05.480)
but there are some other big players out there as well.
Lex Fridman (52:10.040)
And what we've seen is the deployment of some very,
Lex Fridman (52:16.140)
I'd say concerning new weapon systems,
Keoki Jackson (52:20.520)
particularly with Russia and breaching
Lex Fridman (52:23.040)
some of the IRBM,
Keoki Jackson (52:24.560)
Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile Treaties,
Lex Fridman (52:26.480)
that's been in the news a lot.
Keoki Jackson (52:29.480)
The building of islands, artificial islands
Lex Fridman (52:33.040)
in the South China Sea by the Chinese
Lex Fridman (52:35.160)
and then arming those islands.
Lex Fridman (52:38.760)
The annexation of Crimea by Russia,
Keoki Jackson (52:42.960)
the invasion of Ukraine.
Lex Fridman (52:44.840)
So there's some pretty scary things.
Lex Fridman (52:47.200)
And then you add on top of that,
Lex Fridman (52:49.760)
the North Korean threat has certainly not gone away.
Keoki Jackson (52:53.000)
There's a lot going on in the Middle East
Lex Fridman (52:54.740)
with Iran in particular.
Lex Fridman (52:56.680)
And we see this global terrorism threat has not abated.
Lex Fridman (53:02.360)
So there are a lot of reasons to look for technology
Keoki Jackson (53:06.100)
to assist with those problems,
Lex Fridman (53:07.680)
whether it's AI or other technologies like hypersonics,
Keoki Jackson (53:11.360)
which we discussed.
Lex Fridman (53:12.960)
So now let me give just a couple of hypotheticals.
Lex Fridman (53:17.320)
So people react sort of in the second timeframe, right?
Lex Fridman (53:24.840)
Photon hitting your eye to movement
Keoki Jackson (53:27.800)
is on the order of a few tenths of a second
Lex Fridman (53:30.600)
kinds of processing time.
Keoki Jackson (53:34.440)
Roughly speaking,
Lex Fridman (53:36.560)
computers are operating in the nanosecond timescale, right?
Lex Fridman (53:41.560)
So just to bring home what that means,
Lex Fridman (53:44.620)
a nanosecond to a second is like a second to 32 years.
Lex Fridman (53:50.640)
So seconds on the battlefield,
Lex Fridman (53:53.040)
in that sense, literally are lifetimes.
Lex Fridman (53:56.600)
And so if you can bring an autonomous
Lex Fridman (54:01.040)
or AI enabled capability
Keoki Jackson (54:03.260)
that will enable the human to shrink,
Lex Fridman (54:05.640)
maybe you've heard the term the OODA loop.
Lex Fridman (54:07.540)
So this whole idea that a typical battlefield decision
Lex Fridman (54:12.160)
is characterized by observe.
Lex Fridman (54:15.800)
So information comes in, orient.
Lex Fridman (54:18.400)
How does that, what does that mean in the context?
Lex Fridman (54:21.240)
Decide, what do I do about it?
Lex Fridman (54:23.040)
And then act, take that action.
Keoki Jackson (54:25.160)
If you can use these capabilities to compress that OODA loop
Lex Fridman (54:29.880)
to stay inside what your adversary is doing,
Keoki Jackson (54:32.240)
that's an incredible powerful force on the battlefield.
Lex Fridman (54:37.680)
That's a really nice way to put it,
Keoki Jackson (54:39.120)
that the role of AI and computing in general
Lex Fridman (54:41.680)
has a lot to benefit from just decreasing
Keoki Jackson (54:45.160)
from 32 years to one second,
Lex Fridman (54:47.240)
as opposed to on the scale of seconds and minutes and hours
Keoki Jackson (54:50.560)
making decisions that humans are better at making.
Lex Fridman (54:53.440)
And it actually goes the other way too.
Lex Fridman (54:54.960)
So that's on the short timescale.
Lex Fridman (54:57.160)
So humans kind of work in the one second,
Keoki Jackson (54:59.760)
two seconds to eight hours.
Lex Fridman (55:01.520)
After eight hours, you get tired,
Keoki Jackson (55:04.320)
you gotta go to the bathroom, whatever the case might be.
Lex Fridman (55:07.480)
So there's this whole range of other things.
Keoki Jackson (55:09.720)
Think about surveillance and guarding facilities.
Lex Fridman (55:16.560)
Think about moving material, logistics, sustainment.
Keoki Jackson (55:20.520)
A lot of these, what they call dull, dirty
Lex Fridman (55:22.600)
and dangerous things that you need
Keoki Jackson (55:24.520)
to have sustained activity,
Lex Fridman (55:26.160)
but it's sort of beyond the length of time
Keoki Jackson (55:28.000)
that a human can practically do as well.
Lex Fridman (55:30.920)
So there's this range of things that are critical
Keoki Jackson (55:36.400)
in military and defense applications
Lex Fridman (55:39.120)
that AI and autonomy are particularly well suited to.
Keoki Jackson (55:43.240)
Now, the interesting question that you brought up is,
Lex Fridman (55:46.040)
okay, how do you make sure that stays within human control?
Lex Fridman (55:49.840)
So that was the context for now the policy.
Lex Fridman (55:52.360)
And so there is a DOD directive called 3000.09
Keoki Jackson (55:56.160)
because that's the way we name stuff in this world.
Lex Fridman (56:00.760)
But I'd say it's well worth reading.
Keoki Jackson (56:04.280)
It's only a couple of pages long,
Lex Fridman (56:05.880)
but it makes some key points.
Lex Fridman (56:07.280)
And it's really around making sure
Lex Fridman (56:09.520)
that there's human agency and control
Keoki Jackson (56:12.320)
over use of semi autonomous and autonomous weapons systems,
Lex Fridman (56:20.240)
making sure that these systems are tested,
Keoki Jackson (56:23.080)
verified and evaluated in realistic,
Lex Fridman (56:25.800)
real world type scenarios,
Keoki Jackson (56:28.200)
making sure that the people are actually trained
Lex Fridman (56:30.400)
on how to use them,
Keoki Jackson (56:31.880)
making sure that the systems have human machine interfaces
Lex Fridman (56:36.000)
that can show what state they're in
Lex Fridman (56:38.080)
and what kinds of decisions they're making,
Lex Fridman (56:40.320)
making sure that you've established doctrine
Lex Fridman (56:42.800)
and tactics and techniques and procedures
Lex Fridman (56:45.800)
for the use of these kinds of systems.
Lex Fridman (56:48.240)
And so, and by the way, I mean, none of this is easy,
Lex Fridman (56:52.880)
but I'm just trying to lay kind of the picture
Keoki Jackson (56:56.040)
of how the US has said,
Lex Fridman (56:58.200)
this is the way we're gonna treat AI and autonomous systems,
Keoki Jackson (57:02.600)
that it's not a free for all.
Lex Fridman (57:04.600)
And like there are rules of war and rules of engagement
Keoki Jackson (57:08.160)
with other kinds of systems,
Lex Fridman (57:09.480)
think chemical weapons, biological weapons,
Keoki Jackson (57:12.200)
we need to think about the same sorts of implications.
Lex Fridman (57:15.720)
And this is something that's really important
Keoki Jackson (57:17.320)
for Lockheed Martin.
Lex Fridman (57:18.160)
I mean, obviously we are a hundred percent complying
Keoki Jackson (57:21.600)
with our customer and the policies and regulations,
Lex Fridman (57:26.400)
but I mean, AI is an incredible enabler,
Keoki Jackson (57:30.560)
say within the walls of Lockheed Martin
Lex Fridman (57:32.360)
in terms of improving production efficiency,
Keoki Jackson (57:35.200)
doing helping engineers, doing generative design,
Lex Fridman (57:38.240)
improving logistics, driving down energy costs.
Keoki Jackson (57:42.040)
I mean, there are so many applications,
Lex Fridman (57:44.360)
but we're also very interested in some of the elements
Keoki Jackson (57:48.160)
of ethical application within Lockheed Martin.
Lex Fridman (57:51.800)
So we need to make sure that things like privacy
Keoki Jackson (57:54.360)
is taken care of, that we do everything we can
Lex Fridman (57:58.480)
to drive out bias in AI enabled kinds of systems,
Keoki Jackson (58:03.480)
that we make sure that humans are involved in decisions,
Lex Fridman (58:06.320)
that we're not just delegating accountability to algorithms.
Lex Fridman (58:10.640)
And so for us, it all comes back,
Lex Fridman (58:13.280)
I talked about culture before,
Lex Fridman (58:14.560)
and it comes back to sort of the Lockheed Martin culture
Lex Fridman (58:17.920)
and our core values.
Lex Fridman (58:19.160)
And so it's pretty simple for us and do what's right,
Lex Fridman (58:21.720)
respect others, perform with excellence.
Lex Fridman (58:24.280)
And now how do we tie that back to the ethical principles
Lex Fridman (58:27.960)
will govern how AI is used within Lockheed Martin.
Lex Fridman (58:31.840)
And we actually have a world, pretty,
Lex Fridman (58:34.400)
so you might not know this,
Lex Fridman (58:35.520)
but there are actually awards for ethics programs.
Lex Fridman (58:37.680)
Lockheed Martin's had a recognized ethics program
Keoki Jackson (58:41.400)
for many years.
Lex Fridman (58:42.240)
And this is one of the things that our ethics team
Keoki Jackson (58:44.600)
is working with our engineering team on.
Lex Fridman (58:47.840)
One of the miracles to me, perhaps a layman,
Keoki Jackson (58:51.320)
again, I was born in the Soviet Union.
Lex Fridman (58:53.760)
So I have echoes, at least in my family history
Keoki Jackson (58:57.840)
of World War II and the Cold War.
Lex Fridman (59:00.640)
Do you have a sense of why human civilization
Keoki Jackson (59:04.760)
has not destroyed itself through nuclear war,
Lex Fridman (59:07.120)
so nuclear deterrence?
Lex Fridman (59:09.200)
And thinking about the future,
Lex Fridman (59:11.960)
does this technology have a role to play here?
Lex Fridman (59:14.600)
And what is the long term future
Lex Fridman (59:17.400)
of nuclear deterrence look like?
Keoki Jackson (59:20.440)
Yeah, this is one of those hard, hard questions.
Lex Fridman (59:24.840)
And I should note that Lockheed Martin is both proud
Lex Fridman (59:29.040)
and privileged to play a part in multiple legs
Lex Fridman (59:31.520)
of our nuclear and strategic deterrent systems
Keoki Jackson (59:35.920)
like the Trident submarine launch ballistic missiles.
Lex Fridman (59:42.200)
You talk about, is there still a possibility
Lex Fridman (59:47.400)
that the human race could destroy itself?
Lex Fridman (59:49.120)
I'd say that possibility is real.
Lex Fridman (59:50.880)
But interestingly, in some sense,
Lex Fridman (59:55.480)
I think the strategic deterrence have prevented
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