4 ms·

US Air Force says decision-making attack drones will be here by 2047

9 points by mcantelon 17y ago

waterlesscloud 17y ago
I could say nearly anything will be here by 2047.
- eru 17y ago
  I want my jet pack and flying cars.
Dilpil 17y ago
How long did the atomic bomb take to develop? 10 years?
- philwelch 17y ago
  4-6, but under highly exceptional circumstances that are probably impossible to reproduce in peacetime.
kingkawn 17y ago
Did they say 2047 instead of 2050 in order to make it sound like less of a guess?
- InclinedPlane 17y ago
  Seriously. 38 years in the future? That's the same span as from 1909 (the dawn of heavier than air flight and radio) to 2047 (computers, nuclear weapons, aircraft carriers, ballistic missiles, radar, submarines, jet aircraft). And from there to 1985 (guided missiles, ICBMs, satellites, GPS). With such a long time frame damned near any prediction may come to pass. It's plenty likely that by 2047 we'll not only have fully autonomous combat aircraft but we'll have automated aircraft fabricators and aircraft fabricator fabricators. It's almost as valid to say that we'll be fighting sentient robots in hand-to-hand combat in a post-apocalyptic world in 2047.
  - joe_the_user 17y ago
    It's almost as valid to say that we'll be fighting sentient robots in hand-to-hand combat in a post-apocalyptic world in 2047. Hey, perhaps those are the decision-making drones they were talking about!
  - wayne 17y ago
    Your point is a good one but I think it's somewhat cheating to pick 1909-1947 as your arbitrary 38 year period since both world wars happened during that period. A world war has a way of spurring innovation in killing technologies more than anything else. I guess it's possible we have two more world wars between now and 2047, but that seems unlikely to me.
    - InclinedPlane 17y ago
      Well, I picked two periods, 1909-1947 and 1947-1985, in one two world wars occurred, in the other the Cold War occurred. But that's the point isn't it? Over time history happens. The time line is not a steady state. People thought that the end of the Cold War was the end of history, but that wasn't the case at all, plenty of history happened and is still happening, throughout the world. Plenty more history will happen in the next 38 years. Perhaps that history will include a war between nuclear powers (somewhat unlikely) or perhaps it will include things we cannot anticipate today, but it's a bit silly to imagine that we can predict what the technology of 2047 will look like. That's BDUF at its worst. Better to look at the technology needs of today while planning for flexibility and be able to iterate rapidly if we see a need for change down the road. If the US had locked itself into some grand technology road map in 1909 it would have most assuredly lost WWII because it could not have anticipated the technological needs of that war.
- anigbrowl 17y ago
  I'm sure there's some sort of methodology employed (eg average time from first patent filing commercial application of something to military ubiquity) but it does sound rather like the sort of claims that pseudoscientists make. I'd guess we'll see this between 2018-2025. The necessary technology is mostly here, the main obstacles to implementation are ethical and political. I would prefer not to see autonomous weapon platforms at all, but suspect that the tactical advantage they confer will be too great to ignore, especially when set against the lives of service personnel (of the side with the technology ready to go).
- SlowOnTheUptake 17y ago
  The US Air Force was established in 1947.
- robotrout 17y ago
  It's a long term plan, to use to set research policy, budget allocation, and all the other things that people use long term plans for. Putting a date on it's completion just seems like common sense. If you're dreaming, you say "someday", but if you're a little more ambitious, than you set a date, so you can measure your progress.
saucetenuto 17y ago
It's always fun to watch non-programmers underestimate the difficulty of human-equivalent AI.
- joe_the_user 17y ago
  Actually, I think Ray Kurweil has a good point in saying that every technical specialist has trouble extrapolating for the increase in the power of the tools that the specialty will soon be working with. That applies to programmers as much as other engineers. When programmers start working with a machine having the level of complexity of the human brain itself, our present ideas about the difficulty of human-equivalent AI may turn out to entirely erroneous. After all, we certainly don't have such a machine to practice on today.
  - yters 17y ago
    Nope, human intelligence is inherently different than anything machines can do: http://www.box.net/shared/u13u3agxqg http://www.box.net/shared/u13u3agxqg
    - joe_the_user 17y ago
      Love a quote from this 'study': "While the results have not been quantified with a statistical test, it is CLEAR ON OBSERVATION that there is a significant performance difference between the human and non human agents." Human-level AI is an extremely complex problem and I wouldn't claim know everything that might be involved in creating it. But by token, refuting any possibility of AI is an equally complex problem. Neither "Clear on observation" conclusions nor the other haphazard observations of this paper cut it for such an analysis.
      - yters 17y ago
        Eh, well I've carried out a goodness of fit test since then for stats geeks (p < 0.05), but it doesn't really add anything substantial. What is haphazard about the rest of it? If you can point out specifics it'd help me strengthen the work.
d0mine 17y ago
It reminds me of a story (how to apply for a job to teach a mule to speak): Before ten years pass, I die, the mule dies or the sultan dies... </quote> http://nasredin.blogspot.com/2007/11/ibn-khaldouns-mule.html http://nasredin.blogspot.com/2007/11/ibn-khaldouns-mule.html taken from http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=411695 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=411695
- lionhearted 17y ago
  Ah, that was a fantastic story, thanks for sharing. Reminds me of Arabian Nights, which is really a fine read. Lots of proverbs and fun little stories - you might want to check it out, I'd recommend Husain Haddawy's translation. Looks like the Deluxe Edition is on sale right now for $12, which is a steal. One of my favorite books. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393331660/ http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393331660/ (no affiliate link) On an unrelated note, it's worth reading the general summaries of Ibn Khaldun's works too. A lot of things we take for granted now but were incredibly advanced back then, as well as some good observations generally on how to think and consider things. It'd appeal to the sort of man who generally likes Adam Smith, Carl von Clauswitz, Plato, etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Khaldun#Works http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Khaldun#Works
anamax 17y ago
Does anyone know how long the folks making the prediction expect to live? I ask because this sounds like an instance of "AI will be good enough right around the time that I should die", as in http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2007/03/the_maesgarreau.php http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2007/03/the_maesgarre... (which was recently mentioned in HN).
eagleal 17y ago
They set the 2047 as deadline, beacuase by 2037 they would have ground tested various weapons and aircrafts (eg. LM FB-22). However several papers and articles I read time ago, reported that the DoD was searching for advanced methods (read AI-like) to recognize enemy vehicles (and personnel). Unfortunately I can't find the links.

9 points by mcantelon 17y ago

waterlesscloud 17y ago

I could say nearly anything will be here by 2047.

eru 17y ago
I want my jet pack and flying cars.

Dilpil 17y ago

How long did the atomic bomb take to develop? 10 years?

philwelch 17y ago
4-6, but under highly exceptional circumstances that are probably impossible to reproduce in peacetime.

kingkawn 17y ago

Did they say 2047 instead of 2050 in order to make it sound like less of a guess?

InclinedPlane 17y ago
Seriously. 38 years in the future? That's the same span as from 1909 (the dawn of heavier than air flight and radio) to 2047 (computers, nuclear weapons, aircraft carriers, ballistic missiles, radar, submarines, jet aircraft). And from there to 1985 (guided missiles, ICBMs, satellites, GPS). With such a long time frame damned near any prediction may come to pass. It's plenty likely that by 2047 we'll not only have fully autonomous combat aircraft but we'll have automated aircraft fabricators and aircraft fabricator fabricators. It's almost as valid to say that we'll be fighting sentient robots in hand-to-hand combat in a post-apocalyptic world in 2047.
- joe_the_user 17y ago
  It's almost as valid to say that we'll be fighting sentient robots in hand-to-hand combat in a post-apocalyptic world in 2047. Hey, perhaps those are the decision-making drones they were talking about!
- wayne 17y ago
  Your point is a good one but I think it's somewhat cheating to pick 1909-1947 as your arbitrary 38 year period since both world wars happened during that period. A world war has a way of spurring innovation in killing technologies more than anything else. I guess it's possible we have two more world wars between now and 2047, but that seems unlikely to me.
  - InclinedPlane 17y ago
    Well, I picked two periods, 1909-1947 and 1947-1985, in one two world wars occurred, in the other the Cold War occurred. But that's the point isn't it? Over time history happens. The time line is not a steady state. People thought that the end of the Cold War was the end of history, but that wasn't the case at all, plenty of history happened and is still happening, throughout the world. Plenty more history will happen in the next 38 years. Perhaps that history will include a war between nuclear powers (somewhat unlikely) or perhaps it will include things we cannot anticipate today, but it's a bit silly to imagine that we can predict what the technology of 2047 will look like. That's BDUF at its worst. Better to look at the technology needs of today while planning for flexibility and be able to iterate rapidly if we see a need for change down the road. If the US had locked itself into some grand technology road map in 1909 it would have most assuredly lost WWII because it could not have anticipated the technological needs of that war.
anigbrowl 17y ago
I'm sure there's some sort of methodology employed (eg average time from first patent filing commercial application of something to military ubiquity) but it does sound rather like the sort of claims that pseudoscientists make. I'd guess we'll see this between 2018-2025. The necessary technology is mostly here, the main obstacles to implementation are ethical and political. I would prefer not to see autonomous weapon platforms at all, but suspect that the tactical advantage they confer will be too great to ignore, especially when set against the lives of service personnel (of the side with the technology ready to go).
SlowOnTheUptake 17y ago
The US Air Force was established in 1947.
robotrout 17y ago
It's a long term plan, to use to set research policy, budget allocation, and all the other things that people use long term plans for. Putting a date on it's completion just seems like common sense. If you're dreaming, you say "someday", but if you're a little more ambitious, than you set a date, so you can measure your progress.

saucetenuto 17y ago

It's always fun to watch non-programmers underestimate the difficulty of human-equivalent AI.

joe_the_user 17y ago
Actually, I think Ray Kurweil has a good point in saying that every technical specialist has trouble extrapolating for the increase in the power of the tools that the specialty will soon be working with. That applies to programmers as much as other engineers. When programmers start working with a machine having the level of complexity of the human brain itself, our present ideas about the difficulty of human-equivalent AI may turn out to entirely erroneous. After all, we certainly don't have such a machine to practice on today.
- yters 17y ago
  Nope, human intelligence is inherently different than anything machines can do: http://www.box.net/shared/u13u3agxqg http://www.box.net/shared/u13u3agxqg
  - joe_the_user 17y ago
    Love a quote from this 'study': "While the results have not been quantified with a statistical test, it is CLEAR ON OBSERVATION that there is a significant performance difference between the human and non human agents." Human-level AI is an extremely complex problem and I wouldn't claim know everything that might be involved in creating it. But by token, refuting any possibility of AI is an equally complex problem. Neither "Clear on observation" conclusions nor the other haphazard observations of this paper cut it for such an analysis.
    - yters 17y ago
      Eh, well I've carried out a goodness of fit test since then for stats geeks (p < 0.05), but it doesn't really add anything substantial. What is haphazard about the rest of it? If you can point out specifics it'd help me strengthen the work.

d0mine 17y ago

It reminds me of a story (how to apply for a job to teach a mule to speak): Before ten years pass, I die, the mule dies or the sultan dies... </quote> http://nasredin.blogspot.com/2007/11/ibn-khaldouns-mule.html http://nasredin.blogspot.com/2007/11/ibn-khaldouns-mule.html taken from http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=411695 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=411695

lionhearted 17y ago
Ah, that was a fantastic story, thanks for sharing. Reminds me of Arabian Nights, which is really a fine read. Lots of proverbs and fun little stories - you might want to check it out, I'd recommend Husain Haddawy's translation. Looks like the Deluxe Edition is on sale right now for $12, which is a steal. One of my favorite books. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393331660/ http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393331660/ (no affiliate link) On an unrelated note, it's worth reading the general summaries of Ibn Khaldun's works too. A lot of things we take for granted now but were incredibly advanced back then, as well as some good observations generally on how to think and consider things. It'd appeal to the sort of man who generally likes Adam Smith, Carl von Clauswitz, Plato, etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Khaldun#Works http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Khaldun#Works

anamax 17y ago

Does anyone know how long the folks making the prediction expect to live? I ask because this sounds like an instance of "AI will be good enough right around the time that I should die", as in http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2007/03/the_maesgarreau.php http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2007/03/the_maesgarre... (which was recently mentioned in HN).

eagleal 17y ago

They set the 2047 as deadline, beacuase by 2037 they would have ground tested various weapons and aircrafts (eg. LM FB-22). However several papers and articles I read time ago, reported that the DoD was searching for advanced methods (read AI-like) to recognize enemy vehicles (and personnel). Unfortunately I can't find the links.