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AI Downs 'Top Gun' Pilot In Dogfights (dailymail.co.uk)
schwit1 writes from a report via Daily Mail: [Daily Mail reports:] "The Artificial intelligence (AI) developed by a University of Cincinnati doctoral graduate was recently assessed by retired USAF Colonel Gene Lee -- who holds extensive aerial combat experience as an instructor and Air Battle Manager with considerable fighter aircraft expertise. He took on the software in a simulator. Lee was not able to score a kill after repeated attempts. He was shot out of the air every time during protracted engagements, and according to Lee, is 'the most aggressive, responsive, dynamic and credible AI I've seen to date.'" And why is the US still throwing money at the F35, unless it can be flown without pilots. The AI, dubbed ALPHA, features a genetic fuzzy tree decision-making system, which is a subtype of fuzzy logic algorithms. The system breaks larger tasks into smaller tasks, which include high-level tactics, firing, evasion, and defensiveness. It can calculate the best maneuvers in various, changing environments over 250 times faster than its human opponent can blink. Lee says, "I was surprised at how aware and reactive it was. It seemed to be aware of my intentions and reacting instantly to my changes in flight and my missile deployment. It knew how to defeat the shot I was taking. It moved instantly between defensive and offensive actions as needed."
It was only a matter of time, computers are able to keep complete situational awareness while analyzing what the target is doing. The only question is how long until we can trust them to work totally autonomously. THAT probably won't come for a while.
if his knickname isn't maverick...
So maintaining air superiority now becomes an IT security issue.
...it doesn't end well.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
When I see how our core fleet of military aircraft is sitting on the ground requiring parts.Such as in our Navy fleet of F18's which only 30% are flight ready. I think the military is spending far too little on maintaining numbers and relying too heavily on unproven expensive technology. Frankly, most of our conflicts have not been against proven adversaries in air to air combat. It's been in air support and target bombing and attack of enemy. The dog fight has not been shown to be the biggest threat to American power. I don't see how a few F35's will survive a conflict without being grounded much of the time. They seem pretty fragile and require far too much in support. We spent lot's of money building a strong door, but built the fence out of balsam wood.
Captain James T. Kirk: Evaluation of M-5 performance. It'll be necessary for the log.
Mr. Spock: The ship reacted more rapidly than human control could have maneuvered her. Tactics, deployment of weapons, all indicate an immense sophistication in computer control.
Captain James T. Kirk: Machine over man, Spock? It was impressive. Might even be practical.
Mr. Spock: Practical, Captain? Perhaps. But not desirable. Computers make excellent and efficient servants; but I have no wish to serve under them. Captain, a starship also runs on loyalty to one man, and nothing can replace it, or him.
Translation: he took on the software in its version of reality, with it either being omniscient or having a perfect model of its sensors' deficiencies. While having to work with its presentation of its reality filtered through its presentation devices, limiting the information available to everything the simulator builders considered important enough to bother with and which are actually physically presentable (good luck with proper accelerations, for example).
I'll take the blue pill now.
ayottesoftware.com
Now, give a 11-year old, video game addicted kid, 15 minutes with the sim and see what happens...
Goodness help us if some nation decided to implement this technology in real military capability ... OOPS!!
Your momma don't dance and your daddy don't rock and roll.
Yes, Allen is quite talented but he can be quite a showoff at times. Al just can't help it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
We keep reading about all this machine intelligence beating top human experts, and yet even very expensive blockbuster games have laughably pathetic AI. To compensate for the stupidity, the AI simply cheats on higher difficulty settings. I'm not OK with this. I want my encounter with suffocatingly brilliant AI.
And - communicate?
That is the question... :)
What was this all aboot, by the way?
I wonder what the result would be if the AI program faced itself, another AI unit? Would it be a stale mate?
What if this AI version took on older AI units?
Because when we automate war and remove the risk of losses on our side, it becomes too easy to just throw more robots into a situation. War is not something that should be automated, we need to retain the potential of real losses to restrain our desire to engage in war. Even extensive use of drones is taking us dangerously down that path. We can kill those who oppose or offend us without risk of our own losses and thus we have little cause for showing restraint in using such equipment to conduct our foreign policy.
Oh and Skynet!!!
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
This is probably old data, but few pilots in special, elasticated suits can get beyond 10g without blacking out. As we approach our limit, our peripheral vision goes, so even if we don't black out, we are not working well if we keep this up for long. It is possible to make conventional airframes that can take 25g if you don't have to cut big holes in the airframe for the cockpit. So, a computer in a plane built for a computer ought to rule.
It's worse than that: the AI in this test won when piloting evenly matched planes. But the weak point in modern fighter jet design is the squishy fragile thing in the cockpit, which can't take more than 8 g-s or so, and not even close to that for negative g-forces. Get rid of the pilot, and you can design a plane whose performance is vastly better than a piloted plane. Now put that AI in it and send it head-to-head against an F-35. No contest.
bring on our AI overlords!!!
He took on the software in a simulator.
So he was fighting in a computer game, not in a real jet and certainly not in real combat conditions. This is a limited scenario with limited conditions. Keep this in mind.
And why is the US still throwing money at the F35, unless it can be flown without pilots.
See above. There is a HUGE difference between a computer game and flying a real jet in combat conditions. We've had computer "AI" (using the term loosely) that could beat people at games for a long time. That isn't the same thing as having an AI that is ready for real world combat and it is even further from having an AI that is trustworthy on decisions of whether to shoot or not. To the best of my knowledge we do not presently nor are we likely to any time soon have an AI that we can or should trust to make judgements about what to shoot or when to shoot it. It's not clear to me that we ever can or should take humans out of that loop. It might be necessary to take them out of the vehicle physically (what with us being bags of fluid and all) but we'd be idiots to trust any current AI with complete control of combat.
Furthermore an F35 does a lot more than just dog fighting. In fact its primary role is likely to be air to ground combat far more often than air to air. That's why they call it a Strike Fighter. I'm not moving the goal posts here either. Yes it is reasonable that a computer AI could outperform a human in air combat maneuvering. Especially when the jet doesn't have a human on board with the physical limitations of a human, particularly in relation to G forces. We've had jets for decades that can generate more g forces than a human can handle and we've had to artificially limit them. The problem is that we still need humans in the loop for decision making and for the most part that is a good thing. Even our drones don't shoot automatically because we cannot trust them to make appropriate firing decisions in most cases.
I've seen this movie.
It was only a matter of time, computers are able to keep complete situational awareness while analyzing what the target is doing.
Umm, you are aware that this is a SIMULATION, not the real world, right? We're not talking about a real jet with a real AI in real combat conditions. Yeah, computer can beat people in games - we've been able to do that for a long time. Not at all the same thing as a real world fight in conditions where the rules of engagement are unclear, the political situation is fraught, and the decision to fire is difficult. We put humans as pilots as much for their decision making abilities as we do their ability to actually fight.
The only question is how long until we can trust them to work totally autonomously.
That's not a question at all. The answer is clear. Never. If a decision is to be made to take a human life then a human needs to make that decision. In principle it's no different than pulling the trigger on a pistol. The pistol can be fired without a human in the loop but for very practical and ethical reasons we put a human in charge of making the decision to pull the trigger. What happens after that is mechanics. It's the decision to fire that is the important bit, not how the task is carried out.
And why is the US still throwing money at the F35, unless it can be flown without pilots.
This still isn't a justification. The F35 is a multi-role aircraft - i.e. - not the best at anything. Your $150M aircraft would be pwned by old F-16s refitted to be drones, let alone anything new designed specifically to be a drone.
The reason that money is being thrown at the F35 is because Lockheed like money, and know where to sprinkle loose change to get the best returns.
tower this is ghost rider requesting a flyby
The real test here is how it copes with combatants trained using different techniques and equipment. Ai is only as good as its sensors ability to recognise what is happening. The test is too easy when your combatant is the guy who wrote the training manual you based the software on. I'm not saying he's a bad choice but there is a sample size of 1 here which should always ring alarm bells.
No I didn't read the article, its on the daily mail website so not worth it
[site]
Since the first world war, most air to air kills were scored against opponents that did not see their attacker. The preferred tactic was to come out of the sun or attack from a blind spot. The Red Baron stated, "I get real close, pull the trigger, and he blows up", or something to that effect. An AI- piloted airplane would have this same limitation, as it would only be aware of what its sensors tell it. If you jam its on board sensors and data-link capability, all that AI won't be worth anything. What this has to do with the F-35, I don't know? Unless it's just to flame an airplane that a lot of arm-chair experts don't like. There are lots of missions for a manned airplane, and "dogfighting" (or BFM) is a tactic and not not a mission.
Humans are out of the loop in planetary exploration, and most near Earth satellite work.
No they are not. The humans issue the instructions and the computer on the remote vehicle executes them. The fact that there is some pretty severe latency on the execution of the instructions doesn't change anything. The robots aren't making any decisions about what to explore. Even far from Earth probes like New Horizons were simply executing a series of pre-programmed steps in a sequence determined by people and humans have been in communication with it since day one.
Should humans always be involved in shoot-to-kill decisions?
Yes. Absolutely yes. It is unethical to do anything else. Taking of a human life is a serious thing and it should be treated seriously. A human should have to make that decision and live with the consequences regardless of how the act is actually carried out.
tu acha que eunão reconheço a voz dessa prostituta?????? bah, vai te fuder helena de merda, não vou nessa porra de bee it nem fudendo. vai te fuder e vê se te mata retardada filha da puta. eu não preciso ficar irritado pra odiar essa filha da puta. eu não vou ir até a puta que parou só pra essa merdinha ficar andando atrás. vai tomar mesmo nesse teu cú, porque quandochegar no dia dessa entrevista vou desmarcar essa merda e dar uma banda, porque eu nãoquero nem saber da presença dessa filha da puta.
Why didn't they use a pilot? An ABM is like an airborne air traffic controller. I'm sure this guy was good in the simulator, but it seems like you might want to find an actual fighter pilot.
If this was in a simulator, the AI must have been given access to all of the flight data with perfect precision.
I doubt it can duplicate all of that in a real setting.
AI can't do shit against a enemy that can radar jam its senses. It would be blind as a bat.
It seems like every other week you hear about another human task that has been bested by an AI. Here's to that week when I hear that AI has successfully outdone humans at programming AI's. Of course, I'll hear about it from my new robot overlord that wakes me up in the middle of the night to inform me that I am a physical waste of natural resources before murdering me, but still, I can drink to that.
Yes, we are a very long way from letting these things operate completely autonomously, but they don't need to.
We should NEVER let these things operated with complete autonomy. Ever. Doing so is both unethical and a bad idea for very practical reasons as well.
The drones can be operated remotely by human operators, then once the decision has been made to engage a target the drone switches over to automatic for the actual combat.
Actual combat isn't a simple thing that you can switch on and off. It's messier than that. Giving complete autonomy to a drone at any point is a highly questionable idea because your ability to retake control may be out of your hands. Once the bullet leaves the chamber it's pretty hard to bring it back. Real combat isn't like a video game where you have nice clean indications of when it starts and when it stops. I cannot see any reasonable non-trivial scenario where it would be ethical or sensible to give complete autonomy to a machine for any longer than absolutely necessary.
How well does the AI perform against rules of engagement, or will it blindly fire at any object or structure because it identified a threat being in said object or structure?
-==- Buy a Mac and leave me alone!
So the same criminals that we're paying a king's ransom to in order to develop an aircraft that may not be able to dogfight effectively in real life (limited ammo supply for machine gun = don't miss!) will be able to charge us a second king's ransom to add the AI flight capability later.
Military Contractor Business Plan Principle #1: Don't "volunteer" anything. If the customer wants a feature after the contract is already in progress, don't suggest that it be added. Make them come back to the table and ask for it so you can renegotiate and demand billions more dollars.
Who did what now?
OP here. After careful consideration, I changed my mind. I am NOT sorry for anything I said.
Because Lockheed-Martin spreads around bribes to legislators and the Defense Department employees who approve spending.
And is "dogfighting" still a thing in the 21st century?
You are welcome on my lawn.
I would love to see what would happen if they redesigned the AI's aircraft without the limitations imposed by having a meatbag on board that has to survive the engagement.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
The most common perception of AI that we normally encounter is gaming AI. Anything else is usually hidden in the background, it is only though games that we have any understanding of what AI is and how advanced it is.
Now the problem is that gaming AI is stupid. Deliberately stupid. A common factor with programmers making AI in games is finding out that they outsmart players playing the game so much that they have to reduce there intelligence enough for the game to be fun. Ever wonder why in some games the enemies seam to forget you after finding you? That's not always shoddy programming it is simply because if they keep looking for you your fun gets ruined.
If you simplify a task down enough you can program an AI to be better at that simple task than a person. An AI does not have to think about all the stuff a person does to fly a plane and shoot down other plans, if all it needs to focus on is flight and combat it can be made to be very very good at doing this.
you talk like this is news. We've known how to crash flying saucers by zapping them with RADAR since the 1940's.
Also, is it a really a good idear to teach AIs to shoot down human pilots? Because I'm pretty sure that's how you get skynet.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
But can it beat F-15J 305sqn?
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
For the past 70 years, one of the main advantages the US has had has been our pilots.
During World War II, most of the time the enemy had better planes (Japan at the beginning, Germany at the end - jets vs props.) After World War II, the Russian MIGS were better planes, at least until the end of the cold war.
What the US had better were pilots. Brilliant, creative, free thinking men that could out fly the enemy, no matter how much money they spent on aircraft.
From this point on, air superiority is for sale, rather than something you have to earn with freedom. China, Russia, etc. can build a good drone and put good software in it, without having to worry about raising their citizens up to be creative and brilliant.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
This isn't any different than not being able to beat the AI in a video game. Not exactly representational of real world scenarios. Yes, software is useful. No, it isn't superior to human variability. I really hope the hype finally dies at some point.
This right here is one reason why I couldn't stand the last two Matrix films, especially the last one when the machines make it to ZION and have the big battle with the guys in the mechs.
Even in a contrived reality like The Matrix films/Comic, the machines would have laid waste to ZION in about, oh... two or there minutes, tops.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
The article (and the research paper) overstates Col Lee's credentials, and his words shouldn't carry that much weight. The "top gun pilot" listed in the article isn't even a pilot, let alone a fighter pilot. He was- before retiring several years ago- an air battle manager. His job was to sit in a chair, look at an air surveillance picture (radar screen) and talk to the real pilots over the radio giving them information on where the enemy is and what their formation looked like and how many there were. He never went to IFF (Introduction to Fighter Fundamentals, the first school USAF pilots go to become fighter pilots), which is huge because the research paper stated that the planes in the simulators were only armed with short range missiles, which means that this guy was merged with red aircraft and he's never trained for that. Being a fighter weapons school graduate and adversary tactics instructor doesn't mean that he's a pilot, he stood in classrooms and taught pilots what they can expect Chinese and Russian pilots to do in a fight. His time in "fighter aircraft" is almost certainly back seat incentive rides, which people sometimes get to do as a "good job" reward. It's like saying you're an expert F1 driver because you've watched a lot of races and have ridden in the passenger seat of a Ferrari.
I'm not blasting Col Lee himself (I'm sure he's a nice guy), I'm blasting the journal article (that he didn't write) for being intentionally misleading about his credentials and all the media journalists that are jumping on the hype train. Yes, I'll go out on a limb here and say that the journal article knew he wasn't a pilot and purposely didn't clarify that to make his words sound stronger. A quote about how "aggressive" the A.I. is sounds a lot better when you assume the guy is a fighter pilot and not so much when you find out that the guy just knows a bunch of pilots.
About the only redeeming value was looking at Jessica Biel.
Hey, Canadians are ok. It's the Quebecois that are trouble, they will exit the EU any day now and focus on us. Again.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
"Game over, man, GAME OVER!"
Yeah, a squadron of these things would be a major game-changer in the air-superiority arena.
They "think" fast, they don't get tired, they don't black out, they don't get distracted or confused, and they don't have to worry about a commanding officer giving them shit about something or other or second-guessing their every move.
It's no surprise to me at all that this pilot got waxed repeatedly when pitted against a tactical fly-and-fight computer.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Can you imagine a Beowulf cluster of these things?
Are we talking about Maverick Top Gun or someone more like Cougar? I mean, Mav may have dad issues, but he is a natural. The other guy barely had any lines.
"Liberalism is a very noble idea, currently controlled by some very bad people. Be sure you do not get the two confused.
Just to nip some replies in the bud, let me get this out of the way first - yes, developing the F35 was really expensive. That's not the topic of this post, though.
> The F35 and the A10, while both are "fighter" jets, have completely different roles. The F35 is for establishing air dominance so that the A10 can ground n pound.
That is certainly true. Also, that may very well change.
The A-10 flies low and slow for a reason - so it can precisely hit small targets, repeatedly. A lot like precision bombers of late WWI and early WWII. If you wanted to hit a specific building, or even a campus, you had to fly low. In early WWII, low enough to fly under enemy radar. Then the Norden bombsight and its improved derivatives were created. Planes could then bomb more accurately from high altitude. (Though not as well as the hype at the time.) Later, smart bombs allowed us to hit individual rooms within a building, from altitude. So for bombing, precision no longer requires low and slow today.
The A10 has worked very well for 40 years. When the F35 is as old as the A10, it'll be 2056. It is entirely possible that 20, 30, or 40 years from now we'll have the same precision of the A10, at a distance. Gun sights with high power magnification and such. Of course it'll need flechette type rounds or something, or small explosive charges.
Dogfights never happen any more. Why? Because "standoff" weapons initiate the fight 50 miles apart.
The real problem for air power is avoiding detection, avoiding ground fire, and making your standoff weapons better than the other guy's.
The Feeling of Power, Isaac Asimov 1958.
Tracy Johnson
Old fashioned text games hosted below:
http://empire.openmpe.com/
BT
I've yet to see any form of public transit without windows. People wouldn't ride it.
Windows will become virtual. Your display can show you a movie, news, stock charts, etc or the outside world. And to be honest, imho, if the windows don't open to let in some air then virtual might not be that bad. Well, assuming, you are only a passenger and are not expected to take control of the vehicle at some point.
I dug around, and didn't find any specific mention of the G factor. But since the primary purpose of the system is training human pilots, I doubt the simulator's planes are able to take stresses a human pilot could not. That would make it useless as a training tool.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
The A10 is called "Tank Killer" for a reason. It is a very good Attack Fighter for mobile targets, something some types of smart bombs suck at. The GAU-8 Avenger rotary cannon is a beast, especially with Armor Piercing Rounds. Line it up, shoot at it, its dead.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Until they put that AI in a real plane, I won't believe the test.
The AI won't go into the plane, it will go into the missiles.
This may be referring to a post a few days ago that said something to the effect... "I'm Canadian, Americans are stupid" or thereabouts.
lol
A lot of people overinterpret the lessons of the Korean war where missiles were overstressed versus the technology of the time... and have taken it as some universal lesson which will apply forever into the future, that close-range dogfighting will always be the most critical aspect of aircraft design.
Vietnam not Korea. Personally I expect the AI to go into the missiles not the aircraft. Fighters becoming a romantic anachronism, like horse cavalry. And like horse cavalry they will last longer than people expect. My local National Guard unit is cavalry, reconnaissance, and had horse as late as the 1930s. In certain terrain guys sneaking around on horse was still more effective than vehicles. They were just the eyes for armored formations and not expect to fight themselves. Sort of like modern Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols, if you are firing your weapons something has gone terribly wrong. Note some US Special Forces briefly operated as cavalry in Afghanistan. I believe the US Marines sometimes use dirt bikes. Recon may also be a role for repurposed fighters. Actually it has been such a role, removing guns an armor and adding cameras. Sometime there are gaps with satellite and drone coverage and a fast mover flying low and masking its approach with terrain fills that gap. A role not unlike that 1930s horse cavalry role, eyes, not direct combat.
The big advantage of a pilot over a drone is that you can't jam or spoof a pilot. Same reason that wire-guided ATGMs remain a major player in modern battlefields.
Did he just go crazy and fall asleep?
As you say the Norden allowed more accurate bombing from high altitude but it was never anything near precise, even by WW2 standards. In WW2 when you wanted precision, in the sense that you hit a particular building, you sent in fighters or medium bombers (B-25, B-26) at low altitude. Heavy bombers (B-17, B-24) at altitude only hit a particular building through large numbers of bombs and statistical averages even with the Norden. The heavies were also more precise at low altitude but more vulnerable than the mediums. By the end of the war the heavies were found to be most effective at incendiaries where precision was not required.
That said, the Norden was an absolutely amazing piece of technology for its day.
As a taxpayer, I would love to see cheaper, better drones shooting down our enemies.
On the other hand there was that case of Iran hacking our drones using GPS/radar jamming.
Humans are less hackable like that.
Is Al Downs Hugh's son?
There is a big difference between an AI in a simulated environment and a real world aircraft with sensors, video cameras, radar, etc. When they have AI's flying a physical aircraft, dealing with mechanical faults (both maintenance and combat related), updrafts, optical misidentifications, communications losses, electronic warfare and other real world scenarios then I'll be impressed. Computer programs generally don't deal with situations where all of their variables aren't perfectly defined and anticipated. A human encountering a aileron malfunction can generally figure some method of maintaining some measure of control of the aircraft, an AI unless specifically programed for that situation would simply keep trying to use the same controls until the aircraft plowed into the ground.
The big advantage of a pilot over a drone is that you can't jam or spoof a pilot. Same reason that wire-guided ATGMs remain a major player in modern battlefields.
The missiles I am suggesting will be human targeted and launched but once launched they will be self guided. Their sensors should be more capable than a human eyeball v1.0. Which is sort of what they currently do, but with better sensors and a more variable engine allowing for greater maneuverability, and an on-board AI to employ these, it will be a game changer. A fast stealthy aircraft is still useful as a launch platform, like a B-52 is today with cruise missiles, but the days of high maneuverability manned flight are drawing to a close. Again, in an air-to-air sense, for recon the current "fighter" capabilities will probably persist a while longer.
Anyone that's gone toe to toe with the Kilrathi already knows this.
Yeah. A good jammer and it's game-over for the automatic pilot.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
he big advantage of a pilot over a drone is that you can't jam or spoof a pilot.
How does that apply when you're engaging outside of visual range? Even in a "dogfight with guns" the HUD is showing the pilot where and when to shoot. For other missions, sure, that's relevant, but not so much for air-to-air.
The main thing the pilot adds is judgement that can't be jammed or spoofed in a situation short of war. Is that incoming plane attacking, or an airliner on an unfortunate approach? You need eyeballs on the target, and humans are better than cameras for that in a situation when hostility is unlikely.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
When is that going to be any different than a human pilot? Even if you're thinking about "aiming guns with iron sights" there's not much advantage of the eyeball over the military camera. In any other situation, the human is relying on the computer for all the shooty parts anyway.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
But WHY does it need to go low and slow?
Answer: So the human pilot has time to engage targets.
Ground/drone based remote spotters who can direct fire and paint targets could be engaged by a high speed drone that does not need as much time as a human pilot.
Such CAS drones might be cheap enough to buy and operate to assign to small units, or have requests for CAS come from a pool of such drones that are on patrol, being rearmed and refueled in a continuous autonomous loop.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
Mainly because we don't have the technology for completely self-flying planes yet. Drones require a wireless link to a pilot, and an even more direct link for takeoff and landing. So a good jammer and the self-flying plane is lost, whereas the human just can't talk to home.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
crouch in the corner and just keep hitting b as fast as you can.
Ah, your terminology is confusing me. "Automatic plane" and "self-flying plane" are different than a remotely piloted drone, and TFA was also about the AI winning dogfights.
For what we have today, jamming would be a serious problem as we've sort of ignored that problem (which I find baffling). The military has a remarkable number of comms channels that are very hard to jam (or listen in on), but drones don't use them. Jammers can be easily removed by HARM missiles, but there's no protocol for that.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Bollocks. Even some hobby drones can be set that if they lose comms for X amount of time they revert to some other behaviour - circle, hover, land, head for home...
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
So maintaining air superiority now becomes an IT security issue.
Yes, no joke. This is the number one reason I think you want to have a pilot in that plane with a big red button to disengage the autopilot. If your human pilots can't beat the AI then you need to have them there to turn it off. You don't want all of a sudden a few hackers suddenly having the US Air Force under their command.
"I was surprised at how aware and reactive it was. It seemed to be aware of my intentions and reacting instantly to my changes in flight and my missile deployment. It knew how to defeat the shot I was taking. It moved instantly between defensive and offensive actions as needed."
Convince me the AI only had access to the same information an external enemy would. .. i.e.- only what would it could observe in-flight or via radar. Whether intentional or not, it was probably a cheat. Likely the AI seemed instantly aware because it was. It probably had access to inputs made to the controls of the opponent's cockpit as they were made ... Something no enemy pilot ever could.
A) They don't work all that well (try heading home without GPS......good luck)
B) circle/hover/land/head for home isn't behavior that is going to win dogfights.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Pilotless has to worry a lot less about extra G's and negative G's.
When was it last not wartime?
... which, in the best case, takes you off the enemy's tail. In the worst case, it has you land in an area where the enemy can capture it.
Even the best case is a pretty terrible option. The way around that is of course that to have the drone pick its own targets on where to fly, what to engage, etc. But there's very few people with a stomach these days for letting a drone decide on its own those sorts of things.
Did he just go crazy and fall asleep?
self flying plane technology has been around for several decades. even the soviets could do that (tu-123, buran). every cruise missile is a self-flying plane.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
There's an in-between alternative where the remote pilot picks the target, and the drone takes it from there (much like firing a missile). But then, jamming is pretty much LOS, and so won't necessarily be a factor in most air-to-air fights.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Former Cav,Scout here.
We had scouting drones (UAVs) attached to our unit over ten years ago.
We had the Javelin missile system over ten years ago. It basically made any dismount scout completely lethal to any individual armor threat... BUT I'd stress that was already the case. Every GOOD scout knows his greatest and most effective weapon...
the RADIO.
In the modern battlefield, if you are seen, you are dead. It's been that way for years and it's ridiculous to see civilians argue about warfare without understanding of this basic fact.
Judgement can easily be spoofed or jammed. That's a common tactic for magic tricks. What you think should happen doesnt. You can learn to respond counter intuitively to what you see but you can, and will be fooled, even if you know it's a trick.
Against a primitive foe, perhaps. Against someone like Russia or China, don't be shocked if communications are attacked in an unconventional manner, such as jamming from LEO or destroying / disabling comm satellites or relays.
Both Russia and China have been pumping a lot of money into electronic warfare.
Did he just go crazy and fall asleep?
This shows that robots will be the next quantum leap in war-fighting capability, after nuclear weapons.
Former Cav,Scout here.
My Dad too, that's why I'm familiar with the local Guard unit's history.
Every GOOD scout knows his greatest and most effective weapon... the RADIO.
Same as in my Dad's day many decades ago. That's why I wrote "A role not unlike that 1930s horse cavalry role, eyes, not direct combat." The radio is an indirect sort of combat. Basically, in my Dad's day and probably yours if the scout is shooting the scout is probably "seen", and you've described the problem with being seen.
Did I say those were the only possible options for a combat drone? It could be anything you want.
I expect that kind of stupidity from the other guy, but you usually have a bit more sense.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Rubbish again. Inertial navigation and terrain matching are more than good enough to get you home.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
For about a century now, artillery has generally been used to kill people the gunners can't see, and in WWII artillery was the main killer
A human still had to make the decision to fire the artillery and in general they had a pretty good idea what they were shooting at and what the consequences might be. Once the decision to fire is made then it is merely mechanics but there still had to be an ethical consideration prior to giving the order to fire. Computers have no sense of ethics or compassion. They should be treated like a part of the weapon but any decision about whether or not to kill should never be abdicated by humans for any reaon.
Once killing is reduced to shooting at coordinates someone else supplies, is it that different from sending in robots?
If you give the robots autonomy to make kill/no-kill decisions then yes it is hugely different. When you fire artillery or drop a bomb, the consideration about whether to kill is made prior to triggering the weapon. If you give kill autonomy to a robot then humans are abdicating that responsibility which is dangerous and unethical. Very different situations.
Good morning, gentlemen, the temperature is 110 degrees. Amazed at the lack of Top Gun references here today.
For a human, sure. No drones can do it very well (and even then, dead reckoning for a sailor is not really effective).
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
every cruise missile is a self-flying plane.
Not really....
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I suspect it may be a matter of desperation. I can envision a realistic situation where militaries include auto-pilot fighting in their drones' software library "just in case".
But if a country starts losing a war badly, it may activate that auto-pilot out of desperation. The "philosophicals" about AI control go out the window when your ass is on the line.
Table-ized A.I.
Fighters becoming a romantic anachronism, like horse cavalry. And like horse cavalry they will last longer than people expect. My local National Guard unit is cavalry, reconnaissance, and had horse as late as the 1930s. In certain terrain guys sneaking around on horse was still more effective than vehicles. They were just the eyes for armored formations and not expect to fight themselves.
The Soviets used horses very effectively during WW2. More of a mounted infantry role than a cavalry one, of course, with troops dismounting to fight. The horses apparently worked out quite well given the vast distances and poor roads - better in some situations than mechanized units. Cavalry was used to exploit breakthroughs achieved by regular infantry and armor units.
Ivan Yakushin's book (2005) describes his experiences in one such unit (the 24th Guards Cavalry Regiment), as a junior officer in charge of a platoon of anti-tank guns.
The USA went mechanized as WW2 approached, only to find out that mules were more useful than trucks in the mountains of Italy. Today that role would typically be replaced by the helicopter, but a mule has the advantage it can't be shot out of the air, doesn't make a lot of noise, and has no radar signature, so perhaps there will someday still be a role for pack animals in war, under special circumstances.
The US Marine Corp used horses during the Korean War. Famously:
"She served in numerous combat actions during the Korean War, carrying supplies and ammunition, and was also used to evacuate wounded. Learning each supply route after only a couple of trips, she often traveled to deliver supplies to the troops on her own, without benefit of a handler. The highlight of her nine-month military career came in late March 1953 during the Battle for Outpost Vegas when, in a single day, she made 51 solo trips to resupply multiple front line units. She was wounded in combat twice."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The Marines still train to use pack animals in mountain warfare. I believe the US Army also has some training in the use of pack animals. I'm not sure if it is just for Special Forces or if "regular" Mountain Warfare units also have the training/capability.
Yeah, but can it beat the crow bar from the back of the ute?