For a bit of background, go to: <a href="https://x.company/projects/loon/" rel="nofollow">https://x.company/projects/loon/</a><p>I was working on the Air Traffic Control side of unmanned free balloons in 2020, and Loon was an exciting project. While it's a shame it wasn't financially viable, they had it working with up to 60-ish balloons in the stratosphere at any given time. This was an amazing accomplishment.<p>The navigation was equally amazing. It was Loon who did some real research on stratospheric weather. While many meteorological entities throughout the world knew and understood tropospheric weather, the stratosphere was mostly unknown. In addition to AI, Google really did expand the knowledge and science of stratospheric weather.
Yeah I don't buy the baseline comparison of the "expert designed controller" that cannot stay within bounds.<p>We can control systems that have not only fluid-mechanical, but also heat transfer and chemical reactions, all happening at the same time with huge bars of uncertainty.<p>Next.