ArchiveFM

Freakonomics Radio

682. Should A.I. Move to Space?

At first it sounds ridiculous. But it might be inevitable. Guest host Steve Levitt talks to a team that hopes to push A.I. infrastructure off the planet. (Part one of a two-part series.)
Duration
54m
Broadcast on
24 Jul 2026
Audio Format
other

At first it sounds ridiculous. But it might be inevitable. Guest host Steve Levitt talks to a team that hopes to push A.I. infrastructure off the planet. Part one of a two-part series.)

 

  • SOURCES:
    • Blaise Agüera y Arcas, vice president and fellow at Google, C.T.O. of technology and society.
    • Travis Beals, senior director of product management at Google, Project Suncatcher lead.
    • Will Marshall, co-founder and C.E.O. of Planet Labs.

 

 


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

free economics radio is sponsored by amica. You know what they say. If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. So go with amica and get coverage from a mutual insurer that's built for their customers. One that looks after what's important to you together. Auto, home, life, and more coverage that fits your unique needs. Amica helps you protect what matters most, visit amica.com and get a quote today. Cheers to fall savings at Whole Foods Market, home of higher ingredient standards. This Halloween, shared chocolates and candies, made without that spooky high fructose corn syrup. Throwing a party, make it easy with a berry chantilly cake, ready to cook pizza, no antibiotics ever chicken wings, and sushi made fresh daily. Fog gatherings never tasted better. Save through November 3rd at Whole Foods Market. Meet Craig. Craig manages the local haunted house. He's got a lot to juggle, tangled cobwebs, flickering lights, and scheduling vampires. It's time for your break. I'll break when I'm dead. You are dead. That's like your whole thing. You're out of a Kit-Kat.
Five. 15 minutes, but no longer. Good. I'm grabbing a Kit-Kat too. Nobody should have to wait until they're dead to take a break. Have a break. Have a Kit-Kat. The holiday start early at Lowe's. Put some presents under the tree early this year with gifts under $25, like the Carhartt Knit Beanie. Then take it outside with inflatables that turn your yard into a picture perfect holiday backdrop. Get the three and a half foot gingerbread Mickey inflatable for just $34.98. From gifts that make them smile, to outdoor decor that brings joy to the whole neighborhood. The holidays are on now at Lowe's. In-store and online. Wall supplies last. Selection varies by location. Hey there. It's Stephen Dubner. Let's start with a puzzle. I'm going to name some industries, some varied industries, and you have to figure out what they all have in common. Okay. Here's the list. Agriculture, ride share services, global banking, meteorology, military communication, insurance, shipping logistics, disaster management, broadcasting. So what do they all have in common? All of these industries, and many more, are heavily reliant on infrastructure that is based in space, which means that space-based infrastructure is an industry of its own. Here is Will Marshall. Everything from the Rockets, the satellites, communications is a big one. The other will up is around 300p a year. Marshall got his PhD in physics at Oxford, where he conducted experiments in quantum superposition under Dirk Baumester and future Nobel Prize winner Roger Penrose. But Marshall's true love was space. So he went to work for NASA at its research center in Mountain View, California. Among other things, NASA has been developing and managing satellites for decades. We actually started a project called PhoneSat because my colleague at NASA kept on holding up his phone because it was pretty new at the time. First iPhone had come out and they were like, these new smartphones have a lot of what you need in a satellite. They have batteries and they have sensors and they have cameras and they have fast processors. They even have GPS to know where they are. They are kind of incredible and it's all stuffed in a little box and it costs 500 bucks. This led Marshall to ask himself an obvious question. Why are we spending 500 million dollars on satellites and what are the extra six zeros doing for us? Marshall eventually left NASA to help run a startup that made small inexpensive satellites, which they called doves. They had thin rectangular wings and a big central camera for an eye. Like any good startup, they made their first prototype in a garage or if you are Will Marshall in a garage. Literally in a garage, we leveraged smartphones and we plonked the satellite down on the desk of the venture capitalist that we went to see as opposed to have any PowerPoint deck. That was certainly a shock to people and enough people were crazy enough to give us a check. Those checks helped fund what became Planet Labs, a publicly traded company that is today worth around 10 billion dollars. Their vast array of tiny satellites constantly scan the Earth's surface and provide data for all sorts of public agencies and private firms. So that has been a success for Will Marshall, but he wants to go way beyond that. He thinks the next frontier for space technology is to provide

Transcription truncated.

At first it sounds ridiculous. But it might be inevitable. Guest host Steve Levitt talks to a team that hopes to push A.I. infrastructure off the planet. (Part one of a two-part series.)