Azercosmos: Human factor remains important despite AI in satellite image processing

Despite artificial intelligence (AI) automating the processing of satellite imagery, the human factor remains significant in this process, Head of the AI Department at the Geoinformation Systems Center of the Azerbaijan Space Agency (Azercosmos) Hamid Asgarov said at a panel discussion held as part of the ADEX-2026 exhibition, Report informs.

According to him, satellite images cover vast areas, and processing them requires significant time and human resources, but AI technologies considerably speed up this process.

"The role of humans begins at the first stage - comparing images with each other. If unsuitable images are compared, for example, cloudy images or those taken from different angles, this itself generates many errors. After selecting the images, we can identify initial changes fully automatically. At subsequent stages, a human decides which of the identified changes are accurate and which are erroneous. Essentially, the human takes responsibility and confirms the change," Asgarov said.

He emphasized that AI automates many tasks and significantly accelerates the detection of changes, but interpreting them, subsequent verification and responsibility still remain with humans.