If a chatbot can insist it’s right while being totally wrong, imagine the stakes when NASA starts leaning on artificial intelligence to help with life detection.

Could the rovers suddenly hallucinate aliens?

Michigan State University researchers wanted to know, so they trained an AI system to spot the difference between digital “organisms” that can copy themselves and others that can’t, using a computer program called Avida. In test runs, the algorithm nailed the distinction, getting it right 99.97 percent of the time. 

Then, the team tried to fool it. They took nonliving chunks of code and made small changes over and over, nudging the AI to feel more confident that it was looking at something alive. Eventually, the system became almost 100 percent certain that many of the fakers were alive, even though they never exhibited the one behavior defined as “alive” in that virtual world: replication.

The work shows how AI can latch onto patterns in its training data without fundamentally understanding what makes something alive, said Ankit Gupta, a doctoral student in computer science and engineering. Gupta and his coauthor, Christoph Adami, a professor of microbiology and molecular genetics, physics, and astronomy, warn that this weakness could foil space missions that send smart instruments to Mars, icy moons, or other extraterrestrial environments to hunt for signs of life.

The team will present their findings in August at the 2026 Conference on Artificial Life in Waterloo, Canada.

“AI is highly accurate at classifying things that are ‘usual,'” Gupta told Mashable. “The problem occurs when it is presented with examples that are unlike the common things, which AI will misclassify with confidence. This is much more likely with extraterrestrial life, for obvious reasons.”

The Perseverance rover on Mars collected a rock sample with fossilized material that ancient alien microorganisms could have created.
Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / ASU / MSSS

At the same time, NASA and its partners are pouring money into AI‑driven life‑detection projects, betting that machine learning can sift through huge, complex data sets that scientists could never fully analyze on their own. It’s setting the stage for a future in which AI helps flag promising clues, with humans making the final call. 

In one NASA‑funded effort, a large team led by Carnegie Science’s Michael L. Wong and NASA’s Caleb Scharf is building machine‑learning tools to pick out patterns of life in complex chemical data. Their project, supported by a $5 million grant, aims to train AI on at least 1,000 samples — from meteorites and rocks to fossils and living organisms.

Some of the data comes from real instruments, including mass spectrometers like those already flying on NASA missions. The algorithm learns how a mix of molecules shifts when life has shaped that material versus when simple physics and chemistry have done the job.

While Wong welcomes the fresh scrutiny, he isn’t sure the experiments exposed a serious vulnerability in AI approaches. In his view, the way the study actually created its fake life matters. The authors used a kind of selection process that kept refining the code until it looked increasingly lifelike.

“I don’t think it’s that bad, to be honest,” he told Mashable. “To generate their life mimics — their spoofs — they actually had to perform natural selection, which is a living process. I don’t know of any actual physical environment that performs that kind of selection, where it says, ‘I will prefer entities that just look like life, but don’t actually do lifelike things.'”

But the research did push Wong to think more about what kinds of examples he feeds into life‑detection models. His group wants to continue training AI not just on things that are alive, but also on the remains and byproducts of life — the fossils, goo, and waste. 

After all, if the models are only taught to identify living things, they won’t be able to recognize the dead ones, he said. That could create a massive blind spot if Mars or another world hosts only the chemical leftovers of a long‑extinct biosphere. 

Some sea squirts host photosynthetic algae in their outer tissues.
Credit: Hal Beral / Getty Images

“A fossil is evidence of life. So is the chair that I’m sitting on because those don’t just magically pop into existence thanks to geology,” he said. “A fossil and my chair are not alive, but I think they’re part of life. They are a product of life.”

Wong’s team also spends a lot of time trying to deceive its models. In some cases, the algorithm has surprised the scientists by picking up on patterns the humans initially missed. In one test, the system kept insisting that a sea squirt sample looked photosynthetic, even though sea squirts don’t make their own food from sunlight. What initially looked like an error was anything but, Wong said: Those creatures often host algae that do use sunlight, and the AI had spotted the chemical fingerprints. 

Despite the advances in technology, the Michigan State team is not convinced the tools are ready for spacecraft. The team’s lab is also working on its own machine-learning methods to defend against this kind of trickery. 

“We can wait,” Gupta said. “Clearly, we are not there yet.” 

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By Chris Snellgrove
| Updated 3 seconds ago

Many Star Trek fans were understandably shocked when Paramount pulled the plug on developing new TV shows. Instead, they have decided to pivot the franchise back to the big screen, and they hired some top-tier talent. The unnamed movie will be written by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley. This dynamic duo has some serious geek cred, having written both Spider-Man: Homecoming and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. These two specialize in creating stories filled with heart, humor, and pulse-pounding action, and that’s exactly the vibe Paramount wants for their beloved science fiction franchise.

With that being said, the studio hasn’t said much about what this new movie will be about. We already knew that it was going to feature an entirely different set of characters, but beyond that, details have been very sparse. Recently, though, Goldstein and Daley made an appearance at San Diego Comic-Con, and they made a shocking announcement about the movie’s setting: that it would be “further into the future than we’ve been before.” Unfortunately, the ambiguity of this statement and questions about whether this film will reboot Star Trek have offered more questions than answers to a deeply confused fandom.

Giving The Fans What They Want

At Comic-Con, Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley were careful not to spoil the Star Trek film they are working on. Initially, Daley said, “the script is in progress, and that we’re very excited about it” before adding, “I really can’t say anything else other than that.” They relented and said more, but much was just marketing. For example, Goldestein described how they wanted “to do a different spin on something that you’ve seen done before.” Unsurprisingly, they want to cater to old and new fans alike: “That’s our hope with this: is to satisfy the fans, but also bring people in who may not consider themselves lovers of Star Trek and surprise them.” 

In the midst of this, however, one of the writers said something fascinating. After confirming that the crew in the film “won’t be the characters that you’ve seen previously in your Star Trek movies,” Goldstein dropped a bombshell. “I think it’ll probably be a little further into the future than we’ve been before.” This is a comment that has left fans confused, and for good reason. After all, there are two very different ways to interpret this comment, which would result in two drastically different possible movies.

Just When You Thought Disco Was Dead

The most literal way to interpret Goldstein’s comment is that the new film will literally take place further in Star Trek’s future than we have seen in any show or movie. At the end of Star Trek: Discovery Season 2, the crew jumped to the 32nd century, which is also where Starfleet Academy took place. That’s as far in continuity as Trek has gone so far, and the new movie might take place even further in the future. Assuming the new film doesn’t reboot continuity, that means it would take place in a future where the Federation is still rebuilding, the Vulcans have reunified with the Romulans, and the Klingons have been mostly wiped out. 

That’s unlikely to happen, though. Chances are high that Paramount doesn’t want to associate their newest Star Trek film with Starfleet Academy, the future-set show that was canceled after one season. Plus, the 32nd century brought with it some major continuity changes (the ones above are just the tip of the iceberg). If Paramount wants to simultaneously appeal to older and newer fans, they’ll set the movie in a more accessible time period. Like, say, the 25th century!

Will You Cheer Or Will You Puke?

How would that work? Goldstein’s comment mentioned the movie taking place “a little further into the future than we’ve been before.” His use of “little” might mean that the movie is taking place slightly further into the 25th century, which is when Picard and Lower Decks take place. Those shows followed up on Golden Age Trek series like The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager. After the success of Picard’s final season, fans practically begged for a Star Trek: Legacy show that took place in the 25th century. We never got one, but maybe we’ll be getting an entire movie set just a little further on that familiar timeline.

Admittedly, this is speculation. It’s possible that Jonathan Goldstein meant something else entirely and misspoke in his effort not to spoil the movie. Taken at face value, though, it sounds like the setting determines whether the new Star Trek movie is a spiritual successor to Starfleet Academy or to Picard. Given those choices, it’s a safe bet most fans would rather have new adventures set in the 25th century. If we get a new movie set in the 32nd century, though, it may make many older fans vomit. Worried about your novelty popcorn bucket? Don’t worry…if we’re getting a Starfleet Academy sequel on the big screen, you’ll probably just be puking glitter, anyway!