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The whole concept of manned jet fighters is laughably obsolete today. If you were designing an actual modern weapon it would be a mostly autonomous drone. Basic

The whole concept of manned jet fighters is laughably obsolete today. If you were designing an actual modern weapon it would be a mostly autonomous drone. Basically think of a rocket with a lot more intelligence in it. These things would be much lighter since they wouldn't need to carry a pilot, would be able to handle Gs that would turn humans into a paste, and react to changes in the environment in microseconds. There would be no competition between that and canned meat flying around. Note that Russia is moving precisely in that direction with their modern arsenal https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/03/best-bad-idea-ever-why-putins-nuclear-powered-missile-is-possible-and-awful/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/03/best-bad-idea-ever-w...

mrep 8y ago
Last time I suggested something similar, it was pointed out that unmanned aircraft are highly susceptible to jamming. Thus, the only way to make them really resilient is to make them completely operable without any human intervention. It would not be cheap (if even possible currently) to write the software to handle all the unique cases that a human can deal with. To make matters worse, if the enemy breaks into your military drones, they can flip your entire fleet of drones right back against you. That scenario reminds me of the start of Battlestar Galactica where the cylons destroy pretty much all of humanity because everything was so network connected they were able to hack into everything and the only ship that really survives the first strike is an old one that relies on humans to do most things.
- antpls 8y ago
  > Last time I suggested something similar, it was pointed out that unmanned aircraft are highly susceptible to jamming. Thus, the only way to make them really resilient is to make them completely operable without any human intervention. What would a human pilot be able to do if all the fighter instruments are jammed? At best the human pilot may be able to escape the battlefield I guess.
  - nradov 8y ago
    Human pilots train constantly to operate effectively in a hostile electromagnetic environment. And the aircraft are designed around it. This is expected.
    - antpls 8y ago
      AIs can be trained in simulated environments to meet many more situations than any human would in its life time of practice
      - nradov 8y ago
        Nope, we don't have AIs capable of doing that yet. Perhaps someday. But we can't make decisions based on hypothetical future technology.
        antpls 8y ago
        I mean, yes we have. This is how the Go AI was trained to beat the world champion, and it also helps to develop the autonomous cars at Waymo. Give it like 5 years and you have enough compute power to simulate many more data and situations.
        nradov 8y ago
        Wrong. Go is a game with a small number of defined rules and zero ambiguity in the inputs. It's not even remotely comparable.
        antpls 8y ago
        https://medium.com/syncedreview/simulations-pave-the-road-for-self-driving-technologies-78b696227383 https://medium.com/syncedreview/simulations-pave-the-road-fo... If you are not convinced, you can look for "waymo simulation" in your favorite search engines.
- yogthos 8y ago
  I would imagine that these kinds of craft would be autonomous. You'd designate the area for them to deploy in, and they basically sterilize anything that moves there.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
johannes1234321 8y ago
Especially for air to ground attack this is true. Not having a human takes away lot's safety margin needs. The question there is the impact. If you just risk some thing and money it lowers the barrier for going into action, as the risk of having to handing a flag to a pilot's family goes away. However a such plane also has other roles. On domestic protection a key task of alarm squadrons is to take visual contact to pilots of civilian planes who lost radio contact. Also for surveillance/intelligence roles a human on board can have a better overview and decide where to go.
- antpls 8y ago
  > The question there is the impact. If you just risk some thing and money it lowers the barrier for going into action, as the risk of having to handing a flag to a pilot's family goes away. Let's say an hostile space alien invasion happen in 10 years : would it not be better to not sacrifice human at all in the fight? > Also for surveillance/intelligence roles a human on board can have a better overview and decide where to go. With technology, we can create an arbitrary numbers of new sensing capabilities into the machine. A human will be surpassed by a machine before our generation passes away.
  - johannes1234321 8y ago
    > Let's say an hostile space alien invasion happen in 10 years : would it not be better to not sacrifice human at all in the fight? Our plane technology is quite useless in such a situation (and considering that alpha centauri is 5 light years away and aliens likely use the same physics 10 years is quite unlikely ;) ) > With technology, we can create an arbitrary numbers of new sensing capabilities into the machine. A human will be surpassed by a machine before our generation passes away. Often times the combination of human instinct and machine capability is still the best for many tasks.
    - antpls 8y ago
      > Our plane technology is quite useless in such a situation (and considering that alpha centauri is 5 light years away and aliens likely use the same physics 10 years is quite unlikely ;) ) You don't know, anything that would preemptively help to save human lives should be considered. Sending unmanned fighters or drones to probe a spaceship and gather data is wiser than sending humans to the task. > Often times the combination of human instinct and machine capability is still the best for many tasks. Sure. For how long tho. Also, when you fly a plane at twice the sound speed with a screen in front of you, you are already inside like a total simulated environment, your only human instinct used here is your survival instinct, which will, conveniently, save a multi-million dollars plane from being destroyed.
antpls 8y ago
Would a retrofitted module make the F35 able to fly unmanly and/or remotly?
- scottlamb 8y ago
  Likely yes, but it's already been designed for humans at great cost (financial and limits in terms of size/shape, forces, etc), so this is arguably much worse than designing it solely for unmanned operation.
mieseratte 8y ago
> The whole concept of manned jet fighters is laughably obsolete today. We can scarcely build an autonomous car that doesn't crash into static road barriers. Call me skeptical.
- antpls 8y ago
  I was told unmanned flying in the 3D space is a lot easier to achieve than on a 2D plane with many obstacles. There is no road barriers in the air.
  - nradov 8y ago
    Ok now detect and avoid a missile coming at you. That's a lot tougher than steering around a road hazard.
    - akmarinov 8y ago
      Isn’t missile lock detection already a feature on current planes?
      - nradov 8y ago
        Sort of. Some aircraft can detect targeting radar or missile launch thermal signatures to a limited extent from some directions. But it isn't very reliable or precise. Human eyeballs are still more effective in many cases.
        antpls 8y ago
        Genuine question : how does the pilot can see the missile if the missile is chasing the plane or under the plane?
        tim333 8y ago
        They often don't. Fighters have missile detections systems of various types. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_approach_warning_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_approach_warning_syste...
inamberclad 8y ago
And yet there aren't any operational autonomous fighters and some of the higher performance autonomous aircraft have limitations that restrict their effectiveness. For example, the Global Hawk cannot fly through icing conditions[0]. In addition, air superiority fighters - the kind that emphasize high-G, stealth, and speed are somewhat outmoded in the current environment. The last decade of fighting has been against an irregular enemy without much more than pickup trucks, hiding in mountain villages. Emphasis has been moved to close air support aircraft such as the F-15E, AC-130, and the A-10. These aircraft loiter and talk with forward air controllers to direct fire into specific locations, such as a certain building or a ridgetop. How would we communicate this information to an autonomous high speed aircraft from the middle of a firefight? People haven't even been able field autonomous cars in silicon valley. 0: http://www.afmc.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/803666/global-hawk-icing-tests-open-doors-to-ease-flight-restrictions/ http://www.afmc.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/803666/g...
- antpls 8y ago
  > People haven't even been able field autonomous cars in silicon valley. The problem of unmanned ‎maneuvers is a lot simpler in a 3D space without any obstacles than on a road with many more uncertainties and information to process. See SpaceX achievement.

mrep 8y ago

Last time I suggested something similar, it was pointed out that unmanned aircraft are highly susceptible to jamming. Thus, the only way to make them really resilient is to make them completely operable without any human intervention. It would not be cheap (if even possible currently) to write the software to handle all the unique cases that a human can deal with. To make matters worse, if the enemy breaks into your military drones, they can flip your entire fleet of drones right back against you. That scenario reminds me of the start of Battlestar Galactica where the cylons destroy pretty much all of humanity because everything was so network connected they were able to hack into everything and the only ship that really survives the first strike is an old one that relies on humans to do most things.

antpls 8y ago
> Last time I suggested something similar, it was pointed out that unmanned aircraft are highly susceptible to jamming. Thus, the only way to make them really resilient is to make them completely operable without any human intervention. What would a human pilot be able to do if all the fighter instruments are jammed? At best the human pilot may be able to escape the battlefield I guess.
- nradov 8y ago
  Human pilots train constantly to operate effectively in a hostile electromagnetic environment. And the aircraft are designed around it. This is expected.
  - antpls 8y ago
    AIs can be trained in simulated environments to meet many more situations than any human would in its life time of practice
    - nradov 8y ago
      Nope, we don't have AIs capable of doing that yet. Perhaps someday. But we can't make decisions based on hypothetical future technology.
      - antpls 8y ago
        I mean, yes we have. This is how the Go AI was trained to beat the world champion, and it also helps to develop the autonomous cars at Waymo. Give it like 5 years and you have enough compute power to simulate many more data and situations.
        nradov 8y ago
        Wrong. Go is a game with a small number of defined rules and zero ambiguity in the inputs. It's not even remotely comparable.
        antpls 8y ago
        https://medium.com/syncedreview/simulations-pave-the-road-for-self-driving-technologies-78b696227383 https://medium.com/syncedreview/simulations-pave-the-road-fo... If you are not convinced, you can look for "waymo simulation" in your favorite search engines.
yogthos 8y ago
I would imagine that these kinds of craft would be autonomous. You'd designate the area for them to deploy in, and they basically sterilize anything that moves there.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

johannes1234321 8y ago

Especially for air to ground attack this is true. Not having a human takes away lot's safety margin needs. The question there is the impact. If you just risk some thing and money it lowers the barrier for going into action, as the risk of having to handing a flag to a pilot's family goes away. However a such plane also has other roles. On domestic protection a key task of alarm squadrons is to take visual contact to pilots of civilian planes who lost radio contact. Also for surveillance/intelligence roles a human on board can have a better overview and decide where to go.

antpls 8y ago
> The question there is the impact. If you just risk some thing and money it lowers the barrier for going into action, as the risk of having to handing a flag to a pilot's family goes away. Let's say an hostile space alien invasion happen in 10 years : would it not be better to not sacrifice human at all in the fight? > Also for surveillance/intelligence roles a human on board can have a better overview and decide where to go. With technology, we can create an arbitrary numbers of new sensing capabilities into the machine. A human will be surpassed by a machine before our generation passes away.
- johannes1234321 8y ago
  > Let's say an hostile space alien invasion happen in 10 years : would it not be better to not sacrifice human at all in the fight? Our plane technology is quite useless in such a situation (and considering that alpha centauri is 5 light years away and aliens likely use the same physics 10 years is quite unlikely ;) ) > With technology, we can create an arbitrary numbers of new sensing capabilities into the machine. A human will be surpassed by a machine before our generation passes away. Often times the combination of human instinct and machine capability is still the best for many tasks.
  - antpls 8y ago
    > Our plane technology is quite useless in such a situation (and considering that alpha centauri is 5 light years away and aliens likely use the same physics 10 years is quite unlikely ;) ) You don't know, anything that would preemptively help to save human lives should be considered. Sending unmanned fighters or drones to probe a spaceship and gather data is wiser than sending humans to the task. > Often times the combination of human instinct and machine capability is still the best for many tasks. Sure. For how long tho. Also, when you fly a plane at twice the sound speed with a screen in front of you, you are already inside like a total simulated environment, your only human instinct used here is your survival instinct, which will, conveniently, save a multi-million dollars plane from being destroyed.

antpls 8y ago

Would a retrofitted module make the F35 able to fly unmanly and/or remotly?

scottlamb 8y ago
Likely yes, but it's already been designed for humans at great cost (financial and limits in terms of size/shape, forces, etc), so this is arguably much worse than designing it solely for unmanned operation.

mieseratte 8y ago

> The whole concept of manned jet fighters is laughably obsolete today. We can scarcely build an autonomous car that doesn't crash into static road barriers. Call me skeptical.

antpls 8y ago
I was told unmanned flying in the 3D space is a lot easier to achieve than on a 2D plane with many obstacles. There is no road barriers in the air.
- nradov 8y ago
  Ok now detect and avoid a missile coming at you. That's a lot tougher than steering around a road hazard.
  - akmarinov 8y ago
    Isn’t missile lock detection already a feature on current planes?
    - nradov 8y ago
      Sort of. Some aircraft can detect targeting radar or missile launch thermal signatures to a limited extent from some directions. But it isn't very reliable or precise. Human eyeballs are still more effective in many cases.
      - antpls 8y ago
        Genuine question : how does the pilot can see the missile if the missile is chasing the plane or under the plane?
        tim333 8y ago
        They often don't. Fighters have missile detections systems of various types. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_approach_warning_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_approach_warning_syste...

inamberclad 8y ago

And yet there aren't any operational autonomous fighters and some of the higher performance autonomous aircraft have limitations that restrict their effectiveness. For example, the Global Hawk cannot fly through icing conditions[0]. In addition, air superiority fighters - the kind that emphasize high-G, stealth, and speed are somewhat outmoded in the current environment. The last decade of fighting has been against an irregular enemy without much more than pickup trucks, hiding in mountain villages. Emphasis has been moved to close air support aircraft such as the F-15E, AC-130, and the A-10. These aircraft loiter and talk with forward air controllers to direct fire into specific locations, such as a certain building or a ridgetop. How would we communicate this information to an autonomous high speed aircraft from the middle of a firefight? People haven't even been able field autonomous cars in silicon valley. 0: http://www.afmc.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/803666/global-hawk-icing-tests-open-doors-to-ease-flight-restrictions/ http://www.afmc.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/803666/g...

antpls 8y ago
> People haven't even been able field autonomous cars in silicon valley. The problem of unmanned ‎maneuvers is a lot simpler in a 3D space without any obstacles than on a road with many more uncertainties and information to process. See SpaceX achievement.