No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups Predicting the Earth with Josh Goldman: How KoBold Uses AI to Find Critical Minerals
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Apr 17, 2025 
Josh Goldman, cofounder and president of KoBold Metals, shares insights on how AI is revolutionizing the search for critical minerals like lithium and cobalt. He discusses the challenges of aggregating geological data and the need for innovative exploration strategies that blend traditional and modern approaches. Goldman emphasizes the importance of regulatory knowledge and community relationships in mineral exploration. The episode also explores how KoBold validates underground hypotheses and redefines success in a landscape of scarce world-class deposits.
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Value of Exploration
- KoBold Metals focuses on mineral exploration because it offers greater value creation potential and technology can be a differentiator.
- Exploration has high potential returns but low success rates, making intelligent exploration crucial.
Data Sources
- KoBold uses diverse data sources, from satellite imagery to century-old hand-painted maps from Zambia.
- These maps offer invaluable ground truth for training machine learning models.
Mineral Formation
- Finding minerals is about locating areas where geological processes have concentrated metals.
- The challenge lies in identifying these rare locations where concentrations are economically viable.
