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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."
TFA indicated it wasn't a perfect simulation, and even with handicaps the AI still handily beat out the human.
I don't know why you are surprised that the computer is better. Aside from anything else, it will be able to push the aircraft to the absolute limit of performance without blacking out due to G forces. All modern jets rely on computers to distil sensor data down to something that the pilot can process at a much slower rate than the machine can anyway.
The simulators are pretty good actually. They spend a lot of effort making the computer controlled opponents realistic in terms of sensor capability. If anything the human has an advantage here, since acceleration induced blackouts are not simulated.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
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.
After boats (which got autopilots very early on) aircraft are literally the easiest vehicle piloting job for AI for a broad array of reasons. The sensor package is one of the most compelling; they really know where they are, and what they are doing. Some literally $1 accelerometers will tell you the vast majority of what you need to know to keep a plane in the air.
It should not shock anyone that an AI would be a better combat pilot than a human, especially when it comes to stuff like leading shots.
Tracking a target with a camera and making a visual estimation of its heading is not that hard any more, again, especially of aircraft which we've been spotting first with our eyes and then with software since they have existed. We have rather complex and expensive spying programs designed to tell us where military aircraft are and what they are doing. And aircraft don't go backwards, and they don't stop in mid-air, etc. What they are up to is a lot easier to estimate than other types of vehicle, again, besides boats.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Plus, most missiles don't actually have that much maneuvering capability. They are usually solid-fuel boosters so you can't throttle the thrust significantly and their tiny winglets are more to keep them stabilized than to help them turn (in fact, most missiles only have an initial boost and then glide the rest of the way to their target). It's a commonly used trope in Hollywood to have missiles unerringly follow the Ace Hero Fighter Pilot as he does Immelmans and S-turns and daringly weaves through the narrow canyon with the missile just seconds behind, but that is nothing like real life. A missile's main advantage is its speed; it closes on you faster than you can maneuver out of its vision cone, but if you manage that you've usually beaten the weapon. Ground-to-air missiles are even more limited because so much of their thrust is wasted just getting the weapon up to speed and altitude.
It is possible to make a missile that could be more aggressive (longer thrust, better maneuverability), but this would drive the cost up of the weapon significantly; you would essentially be building a kamikaze aircraft, which is an expensive way to take down another plane. If you are going to make an autonomous drone with that sort of chase capability, better to make it re-usable and then hang cheaper, stupider weapons off of /that/.
Perhaps the future is fighters carrying drones carrying missiles? ;-)
Cars will have no windows. Why, if you could watch Netflix instead?
So will these cars of yours have vomit receptacles built in too? Motion sickness will start to become a more common problem without windows.
Even more the computer that runs the AI is probably twice the size of the plane it is flying..
From the article: "Alpha and its algorithms require no more than the computing power available in a low-budget PC in order to run in real time and quickly react and respond to uncertainty and random events or scenarios."
and
"To reach its current performance level, ALPHA's training has occurred on a $500 consumer-grade PC."
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.
If the drone can pull 20G turns, it's game over for the human pilot.
How much dogfighting do you imagine will ever happen? Most combat will remain missile combat. Getting missile lock against your opponent's stealth before he does likewise will decide who wins most fights, and the pilot has little to do with that.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
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.