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AI slays top F-16 pilot in DARPA dogfight simulation

331 points by MontagFTB 6y ago

deleted 6y ago
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082349872349872 6y ago
> "AI still has a long way to go before the Air Force pilots would be ready to hand over the stick to an artificial intelligence during combat" That's making the brave assumption that the platform designer would wish to G-limit their craft to what ugly giant bags of mostly water can withstand. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uMWEEwzadeOFYHvjAKtMjXt_rwHQZD49/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uMWEEwzadeOFYHvjAKtMjXt_rwH... (page 96) and compare Michie's MENACE.
- DavidKarlas 6y ago
  Inject pilot, win fight, catch pilot midair :)
  - twic 6y ago
    Ah yes, the "loop zook", a standard air combat technique: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-wFI9vTqto https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-wFI9vTqto
    - pcdoodle 6y ago
      Very Epic. I remember this.
noodlesUK 6y ago
So, I’m curious what this means. Isn’t a dogfight with guns in F-16s kinda a completely implausible combat scenario in a modern world? I’m certain that air-to-air drones are going to be a big part of future defence, but I’m curious to what extent they need to be much more than flying missile launchers. Anyone in the industry have any thoughts?
- tomohawk 6y ago
  It is unusual, but it does happen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_engagements_of_the_Gulf_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_engagements_of_the_Gulf_Wa... There have been attempts to make fighters (F-4) without guns as that was considered obsolete by military middle management (pentagon), but then they had to add them later because actual combat showed it not to be the case. In fairly recent engagements between F-15s and Mig-25s/29s - dogfights with guns have occurred and were decisive. You don't always get to detect threats beyond visual range and shoot missiles. For a more in-depth account to get an idea of how ROE (rules of engagement), and actual conditions play into these scenarios: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/35765/confessions-of-an-f-15-eagle-driver-with-three-mig-kills https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/35765/confessions-of-a...
  - solidasparagus 6y ago
    I kind of doubt 3 decades ago counts as modern war.
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
      The F-22 - the top-of-the-line US fighter right now - first flew in 1997. The youngest B-52s in service are well over 50 years old.
      - greedo 6y ago
        People forget that military tech changes slowly. B2 was 1980s, M1 1970s, Su-27 is early 1990's. Perhaps the newest aircraft would be the J-20.
  - greedo 6y ago
    Can you point to any gunfights with F-15s? I try to keep track of this (since the Bekaa Valley fights) and I was unaware of any gunfights.
- adventured 6y ago
  It's like beating humans at chess, then Go. We don't desperately need AI to be able to do that specific thing. It's useful as a test - one of many surely to come - to see how far along we are in the process of replacement. You have to start somewhere.
akmarinov 6y ago
Isn't it unfair to the human pilot, as the AI can pull G-Force maneuvers that'll otherwise kill the human pilot?
- ethagknight 6y ago
  From the article, the pilot was sitting in a simulator. It’s also unfair to the pilot that he or she was not given all appropriate measures to avoid a gunslinger dogfight using long range weapons, teamwork, and stealthiness, but that wasn’t the point of the simulation.
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    Exactly. If two fighters are in a dogfight in 2020 it's because an entire network of systems has failed. This exercise simply isn't reflective of modern tactics.
    - thret 6y ago
      Then why do we train for it constantly in coalition exercises?
      - afarrell 6y ago
        Sometimes entire networks of systems fail.
      - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
        Because having the training is preferable to nothing in the same way that having poorly equipped, poorly trained fresh recruits manning your trenches is better than nothing.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    - willvarfar 6y ago
      Open warfare is rare. Most fighters patrolling near potential adversaries have complicated rules of engagement that give up their bvr advantages. So you’re in your fancy fighter, patrolling a no fly zone, and you’re vectored to do a viz id on something that turns out to be a helicopter. Now you’re sweating it in case what could be an aid flight is actually going to fire an rpg at you as you pass, or if the whole thing is bait to bring you over aa or an ambush by some outclassed fighter that’s gonna magically arrive on your six...
lbj 6y ago
If Hollywood has taught us anything, its that this is not a good idea. But, its interesting to think about the future of war when all combatants are automated. Is it purely a matter of resource-superiority? Or will algorithms be the main differentiator? And what about all the countries who are not even in the automated race.
- jl2718 6y ago
  Sometimes people need to be reminded about the existence of CBRN. Maybe you can add drones to that, but it doesn’t change the fact that a single attack has been able to completely anhillate an opponent with no possibility of defense for decades now. If drones are fighting each other, it’s called entertainment, maybe propaganda, or maybe just imperial business, but not war. This sort of sporting match as a proxy for total war is common throughout history.
toxik 6y ago
Guys, the AI has perfect state information. While this is certainly impressive, it is not what you think it is.
- CarVac 6y ago
  This was one of the big advantages the AI had. I could tell that the human pilot had to reorient himself after encounters, while the AI never needed to waste time grasping the situation and was able to take advantage immediately, every time.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    In the same vein, as a former fighter pilot was commenting, the advantage goes to the pilot who can keep the plane right at the very edge of its performance envelope--which an AI can do more precisely than a human pilot can.
    - dogma1138 6y ago
      Classical dog fighting is all about energy management, something which an AI can outperform humans in considerably since it doesn’t uses intuition and experience but real time data.
      - anilakar 6y ago
        With two identical airplanes, that's true. IIRC the AI also excelled in high-aspect head on shots which normal pilots tend to avoid, because for humans it's mostly about luck and less skill. When you pit two dissimilar aircraft against each other, it's up to the pilot to try to keep the fight outside of regimes where the enemy plane performs better. A common comparison is between a one-circle and two circle fight, where the aircraft turn in opposite and same direction, respectively (and unintuitively!). Pure energy fighters like to keep going in a circle at the peak speed of its turn curve, when high-AoA capable planes want to cut into the enemy's flight path to get an early shot. Another surprising example is a well-known HUD tape where a slow but fast-turning A-10 beats an F-16 in a training dogfight when the real-world solution would have been to not engage in a turning fight but hit the slower plane with a missile.
numlock86 6y ago
I keep losing to lousy AI with my F-16C in DCS World all the time. :^) No, seriously, this is sort of impressive. I don't like the taste of this being mostly relevant for war (read as: potentially killing people) but it's a technological advancement nevertheless. What exactly was the input for the AI, though? Just imaging or complete virtual situational awareness? Also from what I've taken from the video the challenge was to just point the nose vector at the contender as long as possible. Not sure if that is even relevant for a AA dogfight anymore these days.
- Waterluvian 6y ago
  Do you mind adding a bit of colour as to what losing looks like in DCS with an F-16? I (Probably wrongly) thought modern air battles are just about getting within sparrow range and firing one off?
  - nix23 6y ago
    That's not fun, you just do dogfighting with cannons and/or shortrange IR-Missiles, like in that "AI" Sim.
  - ilkkal 6y ago
    Sparrows are history these days, but even more modern weapons can be defeated. It’s a lot about knowing what your weapon’s perf envelope is, and what the other side has to throw at you, and defending appropriately.
  - maxden 6y ago
    You could watch some of these DCS dogfighting videos, there is a mixture of guns only or short range missiles. https://www.youtube.com/c/GrowlingSidewinder/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/GrowlingSidewinder/videos Here is one where the flightsim pilot dogfights a French Rafale pilot. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgDZ4BLk0Pw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgDZ4BLk0Pw
trabant00 6y ago
... in a standardized test that has nothing do to with real enemy encounters - the complete title. We've seen this before, even for a lot more limited and controlled environment like the game Dota the "AI" can beat the humans a few times before the humans learns to exploit it's many weaknesses. Some program that self learned a (admittedly impressive) number of reactions based on seeing/playing a huge number of simulations is not intelligence so not AI. It cannot reason on the spot and will fall for the most ridiculous of traps. For example the AI that beat the professional Dota players fell for running in circles around a tower forever while getting slowly damaged to death. Even the most simple of mammals (which we do not consider intelligent) would react to the pain at some point and bolt. My theory is that AI will not exist until we reach AGI. Because with specialized AI you can always fall outside it's area of "expertise" and behave like a stupid bot.
- me_me_me 6y ago
  As much as I agree with your assessment. You only get ONE chance to beat AI in real life dogfight. So you better make sure that your strategy to exploit AI is going to work.
  - dogma1138 6y ago
    Ejection is a thing. At this point it’s also about who has better missiles and more of them. The USAF missiles will make guns obsolete doctrine of the 1960’s was premature not completely wrong.
    - t0mas88 6y ago
      It's almost always about who has better missiles and longer range radar/sensors. No point in getting into a dogfight if you can shoot the opponent out of the sky from 100 miles away.
      - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
        Until it isn't, because the enemy has already captured and compromised your government back home.
NiceWayToDoIT 6y ago
This is 4 years old story repeated again> https://magazine.uc.edu/editors_picks/recent_features/alpha.html https://magazine.uc.edu/editors_picks/recent_features/alpha....
- MontagFTB 6y ago
  I believe in that 2016 test the AI had control over a UAV. In this test it was an F-16. While similar, the dynamics are not equal.
zubspace 6y ago
Here's a direct link to the point in the youtube video, where the fight between human (Banger) and AI (Heron) starts: https://youtu.be/NzdhIA2S35w?t=16786 https://youtu.be/NzdhIA2S35w?t=16786
- LoSboccacc 6y ago
  so they trained the AI at pointing the nose at the enemy, not at deflection shot? wonder why they didn't put this in a proper simulator. also, the AI plane seems to have consistently turned in a tighter radius, which makes no sense in context.
  - mnw21cam 6y ago
    The AI plane has a tighter turn radius because it's flying slower, which is part of the tactics. Having said that, this simulation (like you said) seems to be assuming infinite bullet speed, and making that more realistic would change the tactics massively - probably in favour of the human.
grandinj 6y ago
The more interesting result comes when you combine AI in a jet with : () Not needing 2-5 years of expensive training. () not needing space for the human and it's associated safety systems (*) being completely willing to sacrifice the aircraft to "win" an encounter or otherwise achieve it's goals. In other words, an air force does not need AI that can completely dominate human pilots. It simply needs AI that is "mostly similar in performance", and when combined the advantages mentioned above, means that such aircraft will be significantly better in terms of fighting capability. Of course, that is just raw combat, not other areas of flight where greater human intelligence is of more value.
- LanceH 6y ago
  AI can also fly past black/red out thresholds. Even in current aircraft that would be add capability. But having that in the design phase may open up all sorts of possibilities.
  - fatbird 6y ago
    I'm sure someone in these programs has speculated what air combat would look like between AIs where body-based thresholds are removed and machine learning has developed new tactics that are only applicable in a pure AI arena. I'd be really interested in seeing those speculations.
    - AnotherGoodName 6y ago
      I can't help but think a drone aircraft is essentially the same as a guided missile except the exploding pieces are modular rather than exploding itself and thus the majority of it is re-usable. We already shoot missiles at other missiles. Drones will make that cheaper. In other words i think the biggest change will be in the economics of war. War will become much cheaper in the same way SpaceX's reusable rockets made space travel much cheaper.
      - mNovak 6y ago
        I agree war will become a numbers game even moreso than it already is, by taking out the 'incalculable' losses of human life on both sides of an engagement. But modern combat systems are definitely not cheap!
hailwren 6y ago
The fifth generation of fighter aircraft marked a significant departure from the idea of a fighter jet being anything like what we think of as a fighter jet. They're now designed and employed as fighter 'platforms'. Instead of zipping around the battlefield guns and missiles ablaze in 1-on-1 combat, they're low observable long-range systems designed to understand and disrupt the battlefield by employing their electronic and long-range missile systems. These AI are a natural extension of that. I imagine the 6th generation of fighter platforms will be commanding swarms of fighter drones to do the fighter part of their role.
- enkid 6y ago
  The US Air Force is already looking at this. I believe the plan wouldn't be to tie it to a specific "generation" of fighter, and will allow fifth, and maybe even fourth generation fighters to lead a "swarm" of fighters. https://afresearchlab.com/technology/vanguards/successstories/skyborg https://afresearchlab.com/technology/vanguards/successstorie...
  - fakedang 6y ago
    The British Navy were already looking at fully automated dronecraft carriers back in 2015-16 too. Using smaller drones as armaments instead of missiles and the like.
- low_common 6y ago
  I'd imagine one of the (forget the name, the big planes with radar that buzz around the battle space), could handle a swarm of drones from a long distance. Not sure that it'd make sense to have a speedy jet out there doing that.
  - iamshs 6y ago
    Gremlins concept, deployed from C-130?
  - freeone3000 6y ago
    AWACS is the role, E-3 Sentry is the current plane. It's a 707 full of radar, but it's also a giant flying target. If you're going to link a bunch of drones to one platform, the drone controller is going to need a lot more survivability.
vidanay 6y ago
Meatbags are G-limited. There is an immediate advantage to maneuverability when you remove the human.
dragontamer 6y ago
Ah, WW2 style fighters are among my favorite games. I don't think its realistic, but its still an advancement of AI. I'd see this as an advancement like "AlphaGo" or "Deep Blue" moment. But for a more obscure game with somewhat realistic implications (only somewhat, WW2 style fighters don't exist anymore in the modern world).
briggers 6y ago
It’s important to note this is just within visual range dogfighting/BFM. Also just guns, and also perfect enemy state information. Important progress but it’s super early. Beyond visual range/BVR, coordination with wingmen and many other higher-level tasks still to come (or are still secret).
zoomablemind 6y ago
> [...The AI exhibited “superhuman aiming ability” during the simulation, Mock said...] > [...Somewhere, the infamous Red Baron is no doubt laughing in amazement...] The infamous Red Baron would likely ask what does AI pilot use for eyes? In a classic dogfight, spotting your enemy before he sees you is an enormous advantage. Loosing the sight while in pursuit often equates to loosing the fight (thus going to sun or clouds for cover). If AI was strapped into simulator's digital feed for exact positioning (basically as if manning a game's AI craft), then it had "God's eyes". This kind of superadvantage may be warranted in a game to compensate for usually otherwise inferior in-game AI abilities. However, when plugging a whole computer rack for AI, this sight-advantage would definitely create a biased environment (for the purposes of meaningful comparison). I wonder how would the AI fare if it relied on CV for its positioning?
tosser0001 6y ago
I'd be curious to know when the last actual read-world dog fight actually happened. Maybe there were one or two during the Gulf War? At any rate it seems to be going the way of the cavalry charge.
- bargle0 6y ago
  2019: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogfight#2019_Indo-Pakistan_aerial_skirmish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogfight#2019_Indo-Pakistan_ae... Unless you're talking guns-only (the DARPA simulation discussed in this thread was guns-only).
cushychicken 6y ago
One of the major weaknesses of fighter aircraft is the pilot. Not their skills or abilities: the requirement for a soft, squishy human that deforms under G forces to pilot the thing is a disadvantage. The person in the cockpit is the most breakable part of the system. Everything else on the jet is capable of withstanding far more material strain. Just being able to replace a human-driven fighter jet with one that is piloted by an AI - even a comparatively dumb one - would be an advantage for fighters. The AI driven jet would be more maneuverable straight out of the gate.
- nostrademons 6y ago
  It's also by far the limiting resource on aircraft production. It takes 18 years to grow a human to the point where they can pilot a jet, and then a few years more to train them. Many years more to train them really well. In any sort of war of attrition, you'll run out of trained pilots long before you run out of planes. The Japanese weren't defeated in the Pacific because they ran out of planes, they were defeated because they ran out of pilots. At the time of the Marianas Turkey Shoot, Japan still had a large carrier force (9) and a large number of aircraft (750), but their pilots were all green, and so weren't very effective in combat. The Battle of Santa Cruz Islands is considered a strategic victory for the U.S. even though it was a huge tactical defeat, because it depleted the stock of trained pilots enough that Japan wasn't able to mount effective resistance for the rest of the war.
  - cushychicken 6y ago
    The Battle of Santa Cruz Islands is considered a strategic victory for the U.S. even though it was a huge tactical defeat, because it depleted the stock of trained pilots enough that Japan wasn't able to mount effective resistance for the rest of the war. Didn't know this. How sad. The more I learn about WWII and its abject brutality, the more I marvel at how much US culture fetishizes it. Related: this season of Revisionist History has a series about Curtis LeMay and the history of napalm that is equal parts fascinating and sickening.
    - gknoy 6y ago
alecfreud 6y ago
Is the AI Pilot given perfect 3D state space information about the opponent? Or is it using sensors and vision to build a state?
- MontagFTB 6y ago
  In this test the AI pilots were given perfect state information. No doubt they will introduce a fog of war at some point, complicating the AI’s job considerably.
- mNovak 6y ago
  I believe they mention it having perfect state info. Really the human vs AI match is an effective publicity stunt, the real competition was among 8 different AI, so a more fair matchup.
- ris 6y ago
  This. Reality has to deal with a lot of imperfect information about the location of enemies.
cbsmith 6y ago
On the other hand... if the AI can't even out perform in a simulation, you kind of have to worry about the model.
fmakunbound 6y ago
Watched the stream for this. Meat is not even close to competitive, and this with the AI limited to meat Gs and an aircraft that's designed around meat pilots. I feel sorry for the first meat pilots to find themselves "fighting" these systems.
- iancmceachern 6y ago
  I think the use of the term "Meat" highlights my greatest fear with robots fighting our wars for us, doing our killing for us. Our dismissal of our humanity, compassion and empathy. The warriors coming back from WW2 brought with them a deep desire to not do that anymore. The gamification of killing eachother. Calling ourselves "meat". In every other context, for thousands of years, we have been referring to ourselves as human beings, people, folks, neighbors, etc. Now at the very beginning of this technology we are throwing all that out and going with "meat". Contempt for the amazing gift that humanity is, thats what using "meat" to describe ourselves indicates.
  - triangleman 6y ago
    They're made out of meat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tScAyNaRdQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tScAyNaRdQ By the way, I agree with you, it is unsettling to hear human beings reduced to such terms.
  - lopmotr 6y ago
    I'm pretty sure humans will always value human life - on their own team. The greater danger is dehumanizing enemy humans which is a common technique to motivate soldiers to kill each other.
TheTruth321 6y ago
You can be my AI any time ...
waterhouse 6y ago
"With its weapons and defences under the immediate control of a positronic brain, it would be more manoeuvrable than any manned ship. With no room necessary for crewmen, for supplies, for water or air purifiers, it could carry more armour, more weapons and be more invulnerable than any ordinary ship. One ship with a positronic brain could defeat fleets of ordinary ships. Am I wrong?" -- Elijah Baley, "The Naked Sun", by Isaac Asimov
yboris 6y ago
PSA: The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots Banning autonomous weapons is a very important step humanity has to take. https://www.stopkillerrobots.org/ https://www.stopkillerrobots.org/
- scarmig 6y ago
  What happens if established liberal democracies get squeamish about killer robots, while rising states with alternative political models see them as a way to leapfrog existing disadvantageous colonial patterns?
  - yboris 6y ago
    What are your thoughts about land mines and use of chemical gas in warfare?
lowbloodsugar 6y ago
No surprise. When making video game "AI", our challenge is not to figure out how to make a clever AI that can beat the player, but in making a system that can fail against the pathetic human in a believable way. Ironically, many of those failure modes involve having the AI do stupid human things, like forgetting to reload because stupid human brain/ears can't track exactly how many bullets have been fired just by listening to the BRRRRT of a machine gun. Or stepping out from cover at just the wrong time. Or calling to friends and thereby revealing position. Best one ever "I'm out!" or the variation "Reloading!" Someone here said (paraphrasing) "but it only takes a few tries for the humans to learn how to beat an AI in games like Dota". In war, you're dead. There is no second try. Maybe, if they managed to get telemetry out, the survivors can analyze the behavior, but so are the winners. There are also plenty of games where, no matter what, the humans do not win. Once this is combined with vehicles that do not need to obey "don't squish the human" physics, and humans are done.
amai 6y ago
Did they use Microsoft Flight Simulator?
hourislate 6y ago
Air Combat will be very different in the future. I don't believe dog fighting will even be a thing. AI, Stealth Technology, Hyper Sonic platforms, Drone Swarms, Satellite Warfare, etc seems to be the way things are going.
Paul-ish 6y ago
I'm ready for a remake of that 2005 film "Stealth" that features an AI pilot.
- tsuru 6y ago
  Macross Plus would be better
cwoolfe 6y ago
Isn't this simply an issue of domain? Of course an AI will win in the simulator; have that AI drive a real plane against a real pilot in the real sky and see what happens.
krishna_sh 6y ago
For those interested in the subject of autonomy of weapons, Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War by Paul Scharre[1] is an excellent book. [1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073VXYD5P https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073VXYD5P
hindsightbias 6y ago
This is a slippery slope. For all the failings of humans, most air-to-air conflict has been within visual range. That's because we don't trust sensors/intel/decision-making/airspace beyond that range to not blow up the wrong thing. Airspace is filled with lots of non-fighters filled with passengers. Once we (and they) go to unmanned, then the latency of decisions will require less up-close fighting and much longer range engagements. Acro performance won't even be a thing. Cheaper, more efficient platforms will result in more platforms carrying more missiles shooting in much bigger hairballs. I'll take old-style few elite knights on horses swinging at each other over the hordes of drone infantry decimating a country-side.
bosswipe 6y ago
We continue to rush headlong into autonomous robot warfare without any consideration of the consequences. Humanity continues to disappoint.
hazeii 6y ago
And how likely is this to be needed? Perhaps it would be better to spend the money elsewhere.
aurizon 6y ago
There is a continuum - early spads, tossing bombs, shooting rifles - then machine guns (MG's) on axis, then gunner steered MG's, then axis rockets - then radar rockets - then AI rockets - then AI planes with AI rockets, then AI rockets with AI submunitions, and sub-sub munitions. Later AI's abd AI rockets capable of 100+ G turns. I see the fighter space fully non-survivable for manned fighters, with 100+ G opponents. Overlay this with mature jamming on 4 or more sublevels. I can see Tesla self driving AI packages, shaped to fit to be the teachable AI's that are NOW capable of running these shows. Same applies to high speed anti tank/truck/ship remote killers. High level management inertia in the Air Force hierarchy has been stalling these developments. You can bet Russia and China are on all this, so we must adopt ASAP while we have the electronics lead?
albertTJames 6y ago
Militarized AI is nothing to celebrate. It should be banned or at least controlled with international agreements. 200K people died due to the atomic bomb, but AI weapons will not cause such apparent destruction. They will continue to be improved and integrated into the military and our culture. Because they will never be so scary to cause an outcry from the public or the experts, and politicians will not feel obliged to control them seriously. Until it becomes completely accepted that flying robots kill human beings every other day... oh but wait. Already the case, never mind. It is okay I guess, as long as you are born in the country equipped with it. I had an interview with Improbable in London, the CEO of their "Defense" research arm is a complete nutjob without any care for ethics or forward-thinking into the risk of what he is building. And that's a tech startup, I can't even imagine what's the mindset in the R&D labs of the old-school defence industry. Probably ridiculously entitled and self-congratulatory.
Animats 6y ago
The USAF needs this to get out of the F-35 cost problem. The F-35 costs so much they can't afford enough. So they have to figure out ways to do more with fewer manned aircraft. (Trying to get rid of the A-10 was the last bad idea in that direction.)
lifeisstillgood 6y ago
Does anyone have a good primer on (and I guess this is embarrassing to not know it) modern warfare and the statistics. What I think I am looking for is a short Dungeons and Dragons style combat set of rules, and a blog post walking you through the issues. I mean something like "Jet fighter A: can fire missile X with 50% chance of hitting other jet at range 200mi"
- nscalf 6y ago
  You not knowing in any level of detail is intentional. At best, the US military might have that under lock and key. These are more or less the most secretive projects a military has. If specs like "we sort of suck at x distance" were released, you give away a massive edge. Also, there is most definitely false info like that going around somewhere, so even if you find something, give that a lot of skepticism. Things like this are as much a war of intelligence as it is combat. I remember a couple months ago, a video explaining the physics of a submarine being blown up showed up here. That was the first time I learned that a strategy for submarine warfare was to target an explosion under the center of the enemy sub, causing the water to rush up and creating a pressure differential that would crack the sub. Does that mean that is how sub warfare is done now? Or if that's the standard attack vector? Or that sub warfare would even be done with torpedoes now? No. The general public, and probably people not actively in the military with top secret clearance, only get bits and pieces of modern warfare strategy. Edit: When I said the military might have those specs under lock and key, I meant my understanding is that the military is extremely compartmentalized and, aside from the highest ranking generals, there is almost no data aggregation on the details of what is capable.
oedmarap 6y ago
> AI still has a long way to go before the Air Force pilots would be ready to hand over the stick to an artificial intelligence during combat, DARPA officials said. It seems to me that rival states who also develop AI-enhanced systems for their respective fleets may do a different cost-benefit analysis and throw caution to the wind on that point. A foreign fighter craft such as a MIG, traditionally with lower maneuverability when pitted against the likes of an F-22 (and similarly well-piloted), can eke out a significant equalizing advantage if flown by an advanced AI system; especially under the duress of protracted skirmishes. And let's not forget the industrial cost of building AI-powered jets at scale vs. training highly-skilled human pilots en masse. That's already showing significant ROI in the form of Predator drones. I think combat-ready AI fighter jets in the US will progress along a development roadmap that matches their growing need during acts of deterrence, rather than during full-scale war. But when multiple states have sufficient AI capability to go tit-for-tat without loss of life, then that would signal an ability to conduct more strategic "stress-tests" that carry with them a significant possibility of escalation.
AcerbicZero 6y ago
DARPA has been fighting the last war for ~30 years and this is no exception. AI will always have an advantage when all the variables a known and can be calculated, because if we're honest, modern air combat in a radar dense environment is pretty much just a series of math problems. (between 4th generation fighters anyway) I'm all for seeing if AI can come up with solutions to tactical problems that pilots can't, and as a training tool this might be very useful, I just don't see much value in this particular coverage of the topic.
notaround12312 6y ago
Having human pilots is going to play out the same way cavalry charges did in WW1. Old out of touch generals who romanticize how things where back in the day sending airmen to death needlessly. The inability to change and adapt to new technologies plagues the US airforce and navy. Resulting in both of them being completely miss-equipped for what any war that doesn't involve fighting impoverished herdspeople would look like today. Only a fraction of both's budget is spent on systems that are actually good at anything other than showboating and being profit centers for mil-contractors. The majority of their budgets are captured by outdated manmetal (surface ships/pilot'd aircraft) most of which would be expended very quickly if a conflict ever did break out. God forbid we ever have another conventional war but if we do you can look forward to having a couple dozen hypersonic glide vehicles (costing pennies on the dollar) sinking entire carrier groups in minutes. Swarms of drones just flying past over-priced f-35's, letting them expend all their munitions (which probably cost more than the drones), and still making it to hit their intended targets. But the US navy's still got some kinda ok submarines so they got that going for them, the airforce.... idk I guess they can keep talking about "stealth" (fancy paint) and how its effective at avoiding detection from the underfunded military's of 3rd world dictators.
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lopmotr 6y ago
I know I'm not supposed to detract from the main point, but something is a bit odd about this company: A) It's classified as a Small Disadvantaged Business (SDB). B) All its work seems to be for the government, and this is reinforced by its mission statement. C) "The Federal Government’s goal is to award at least 5% of federal contracting dollars to SDBs." I wonder to what extent it's valuable work vs just compliance with a kind of charity program?
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Ari_Ugwu 6y ago
"The Feeling of Power" by Asimov feels like an appropriate mention here.
- tialaramex 6y ago
  Or perhaps "Malak" by Peter Watts.
pkaye 6y ago
> All eight teams will compete in each of the three scheduled trials. They will use the JSBSim open-source flight dynamics model for simulation environment and the open-source FlightGear Flight Simulator for the visual system. The simulated aircraft for the Trials is the publically available, unclassified FlightGear version of an F-15C fighter aircraft. Interestingly they are using the FlightGear flight simulator.
ganafagol 6y ago
352 comments and counting. So sad to see so many talented and smart people burn their energy discussing war machines.
pdfernhout 6y ago
Military robots like drones are ironic because they are created essentially to force humans to work like robots in an industrialized social order. Why not just create industrial robots to do the work instead? Nuclear weapons are ironic because they are about using space age systems to fight over oil and land. Why not just use advanced materials as found in nuclear missiles to make renewable energy sources (like windmills or solar panels) to replace oil, or why not use rocketry to move into space by building space habitats for more land? Biological weapons like genetically-engineered plagues are ironic because they are about using advanced life-altering biotechnology to fight over which old-fashioned humans get to occupy the planet. Why not just use advanced biotech to let people pick their skin color, or to create living arkologies and agricultural abundance for everyone everywhere? These militaristic socio-economic ironies would be hilarious if they were not so deadly serious. ... Likewise, even United States three-letter agencies like the NSA and the CIA, as well as their foreign counterparts, are becoming ironic institutions in many ways. Despite probably having more computing power per square foot than any other place in the world, they seem not to have thought much about the implications of all that computer power and organized information to transform the world into a place of abundance for all. Cheap computing makes possible just about cheap everything else, as does the ability to make better designs through shared computing. ... There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all. So, while in the past, we had "nothing to fear but fear itself", the thing to fear these days is ironically ... irony. :-) ... ==== The above is from: "Recognizing irony is key to transcending militarism" -- an essay I wrote in 2010: https://pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html https://pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transce...
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Fjolsvith 6y ago
Air Force General Thompson interviewed Elon Musk at the Air Warfare Symposium this year. [1] It was, in a nutshell, a reality check for the Air Force's combat pilots, who were present in the audience, that they were no longer top dog, and had to either get on board with the new mission of drone warfare, or get off the train. 1. https://youtu.be/sp8smJFaKYE https://youtu.be/sp8smJFaKYE
slowhand09 6y ago
Interesting competition. I just finished "Ghost Fleet" which is chock full of this tech. Eye-opening stuff when you look deeper. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Fleet_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Fleet_(novel)
foxyv 6y ago
I watched this demo and noticed that the major advantage the AI pilot had was that it had near perfect gunnery. The human pilot had superior BFM and would have blown the AI out of the air if he had the reaction time for an instantaneous gun solution like the AI. A semi-autonomous mode where a half action trigger automatically maneuvers into a gun solution for the human pilot would have won him the match handily.

331 points by MontagFTB 6y ago

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> "AI still has a long way to go before the Air Force pilots would be ready to hand over the stick to an artificial intelligence during combat" That's making the brave assumption that the platform designer would wish to G-limit their craft to what ugly giant bags of mostly water can withstand. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uMWEEwzadeOFYHvjAKtMjXt_rwHQZD49/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uMWEEwzadeOFYHvjAKtMjXt_rwH... (page 96) and compare Michie's MENACE.

DavidKarlas 6y ago
Inject pilot, win fight, catch pilot midair :)
- twic 6y ago
  Ah yes, the "loop zook", a standard air combat technique: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-wFI9vTqto https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-wFI9vTqto
  - pcdoodle 6y ago
    Very Epic. I remember this.

noodlesUK 6y ago

So, I’m curious what this means. Isn’t a dogfight with guns in F-16s kinda a completely implausible combat scenario in a modern world? I’m certain that air-to-air drones are going to be a big part of future defence, but I’m curious to what extent they need to be much more than flying missile launchers. Anyone in the industry have any thoughts?

tomohawk 6y ago
It is unusual, but it does happen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_engagements_of_the_Gulf_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_engagements_of_the_Gulf_Wa... There have been attempts to make fighters (F-4) without guns as that was considered obsolete by military middle management (pentagon), but then they had to add them later because actual combat showed it not to be the case. In fairly recent engagements between F-15s and Mig-25s/29s - dogfights with guns have occurred and were decisive. You don't always get to detect threats beyond visual range and shoot missiles. For a more in-depth account to get an idea of how ROE (rules of engagement), and actual conditions play into these scenarios: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/35765/confessions-of-an-f-15-eagle-driver-with-three-mig-kills https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/35765/confessions-of-a...
- solidasparagus 6y ago
  I kind of doubt 3 decades ago counts as modern war.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    The F-22 - the top-of-the-line US fighter right now - first flew in 1997. The youngest B-52s in service are well over 50 years old.
    - greedo 6y ago
      People forget that military tech changes slowly. B2 was 1980s, M1 1970s, Su-27 is early 1990's. Perhaps the newest aircraft would be the J-20.
- greedo 6y ago
  Can you point to any gunfights with F-15s? I try to keep track of this (since the Bekaa Valley fights) and I was unaware of any gunfights.
adventured 6y ago
It's like beating humans at chess, then Go. We don't desperately need AI to be able to do that specific thing. It's useful as a test - one of many surely to come - to see how far along we are in the process of replacement. You have to start somewhere.

akmarinov 6y ago

Isn't it unfair to the human pilot, as the AI can pull G-Force maneuvers that'll otherwise kill the human pilot?

ethagknight 6y ago
From the article, the pilot was sitting in a simulator. It’s also unfair to the pilot that he or she was not given all appropriate measures to avoid a gunslinger dogfight using long range weapons, teamwork, and stealthiness, but that wasn’t the point of the simulation.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  Exactly. If two fighters are in a dogfight in 2020 it's because an entire network of systems has failed. This exercise simply isn't reflective of modern tactics.
  - thret 6y ago
    Then why do we train for it constantly in coalition exercises?
    - afarrell 6y ago
      Sometimes entire networks of systems fail.
    - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
      Because having the training is preferable to nothing in the same way that having poorly equipped, poorly trained fresh recruits manning your trenches is better than nothing.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - willvarfar 6y ago
    Open warfare is rare. Most fighters patrolling near potential adversaries have complicated rules of engagement that give up their bvr advantages. So you’re in your fancy fighter, patrolling a no fly zone, and you’re vectored to do a viz id on something that turns out to be a helicopter. Now you’re sweating it in case what could be an aid flight is actually going to fire an rpg at you as you pass, or if the whole thing is bait to bring you over aa or an ambush by some outclassed fighter that’s gonna magically arrive on your six...

lbj 6y ago

If Hollywood has taught us anything, its that this is not a good idea. But, its interesting to think about the future of war when all combatants are automated. Is it purely a matter of resource-superiority? Or will algorithms be the main differentiator? And what about all the countries who are not even in the automated race.

jl2718 6y ago
Sometimes people need to be reminded about the existence of CBRN. Maybe you can add drones to that, but it doesn’t change the fact that a single attack has been able to completely anhillate an opponent with no possibility of defense for decades now. If drones are fighting each other, it’s called entertainment, maybe propaganda, or maybe just imperial business, but not war. This sort of sporting match as a proxy for total war is common throughout history.

toxik 6y ago

Guys, the AI has perfect state information. While this is certainly impressive, it is not what you think it is.

CarVac 6y ago
This was one of the big advantages the AI had. I could tell that the human pilot had to reorient himself after encounters, while the AI never needed to waste time grasping the situation and was able to take advantage immediately, every time.
- ghaff 6y ago
  In the same vein, as a former fighter pilot was commenting, the advantage goes to the pilot who can keep the plane right at the very edge of its performance envelope--which an AI can do more precisely than a human pilot can.
  - dogma1138 6y ago
    Classical dog fighting is all about energy management, something which an AI can outperform humans in considerably since it doesn’t uses intuition and experience but real time data.
    - anilakar 6y ago
      With two identical airplanes, that's true. IIRC the AI also excelled in high-aspect head on shots which normal pilots tend to avoid, because for humans it's mostly about luck and less skill. When you pit two dissimilar aircraft against each other, it's up to the pilot to try to keep the fight outside of regimes where the enemy plane performs better. A common comparison is between a one-circle and two circle fight, where the aircraft turn in opposite and same direction, respectively (and unintuitively!). Pure energy fighters like to keep going in a circle at the peak speed of its turn curve, when high-AoA capable planes want to cut into the enemy's flight path to get an early shot. Another surprising example is a well-known HUD tape where a slow but fast-turning A-10 beats an F-16 in a training dogfight when the real-world solution would have been to not engage in a turning fight but hit the slower plane with a missile.

numlock86 6y ago

I keep losing to lousy AI with my F-16C in DCS World all the time. :^) No, seriously, this is sort of impressive. I don't like the taste of this being mostly relevant for war (read as: potentially killing people) but it's a technological advancement nevertheless. What exactly was the input for the AI, though? Just imaging or complete virtual situational awareness? Also from what I've taken from the video the challenge was to just point the nose vector at the contender as long as possible. Not sure if that is even relevant for a AA dogfight anymore these days.

Waterluvian 6y ago
Do you mind adding a bit of colour as to what losing looks like in DCS with an F-16? I (Probably wrongly) thought modern air battles are just about getting within sparrow range and firing one off?
- nix23 6y ago
  That's not fun, you just do dogfighting with cannons and/or shortrange IR-Missiles, like in that "AI" Sim.
- ilkkal 6y ago
  Sparrows are history these days, but even more modern weapons can be defeated. It’s a lot about knowing what your weapon’s perf envelope is, and what the other side has to throw at you, and defending appropriately.
- maxden 6y ago
  You could watch some of these DCS dogfighting videos, there is a mixture of guns only or short range missiles. https://www.youtube.com/c/GrowlingSidewinder/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/GrowlingSidewinder/videos Here is one where the flightsim pilot dogfights a French Rafale pilot. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgDZ4BLk0Pw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgDZ4BLk0Pw

trabant00 6y ago

... in a standardized test that has nothing do to with real enemy encounters - the complete title. We've seen this before, even for a lot more limited and controlled environment like the game Dota the "AI" can beat the humans a few times before the humans learns to exploit it's many weaknesses. Some program that self learned a (admittedly impressive) number of reactions based on seeing/playing a huge number of simulations is not intelligence so not AI. It cannot reason on the spot and will fall for the most ridiculous of traps. For example the AI that beat the professional Dota players fell for running in circles around a tower forever while getting slowly damaged to death. Even the most simple of mammals (which we do not consider intelligent) would react to the pain at some point and bolt. My theory is that AI will not exist until we reach AGI. Because with specialized AI you can always fall outside it's area of "expertise" and behave like a stupid bot.

me_me_me 6y ago
As much as I agree with your assessment. You only get ONE chance to beat AI in real life dogfight. So you better make sure that your strategy to exploit AI is going to work.
- dogma1138 6y ago
  Ejection is a thing. At this point it’s also about who has better missiles and more of them. The USAF missiles will make guns obsolete doctrine of the 1960’s was premature not completely wrong.
  - t0mas88 6y ago
    It's almost always about who has better missiles and longer range radar/sensors. No point in getting into a dogfight if you can shoot the opponent out of the sky from 100 miles away.
    - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
      Until it isn't, because the enemy has already captured and compromised your government back home.

NiceWayToDoIT 6y ago

This is 4 years old story repeated again> https://magazine.uc.edu/editors_picks/recent_features/alpha.html https://magazine.uc.edu/editors_picks/recent_features/alpha....

MontagFTB 6y ago
I believe in that 2016 test the AI had control over a UAV. In this test it was an F-16. While similar, the dynamics are not equal.

zubspace 6y ago

Here's a direct link to the point in the youtube video, where the fight between human (Banger) and AI (Heron) starts: https://youtu.be/NzdhIA2S35w?t=16786 https://youtu.be/NzdhIA2S35w?t=16786

LoSboccacc 6y ago
so they trained the AI at pointing the nose at the enemy, not at deflection shot? wonder why they didn't put this in a proper simulator. also, the AI plane seems to have consistently turned in a tighter radius, which makes no sense in context.
- mnw21cam 6y ago
  The AI plane has a tighter turn radius because it's flying slower, which is part of the tactics. Having said that, this simulation (like you said) seems to be assuming infinite bullet speed, and making that more realistic would change the tactics massively - probably in favour of the human.

grandinj 6y ago

The more interesting result comes when you combine AI in a jet with : () Not needing 2-5 years of expensive training. () not needing space for the human and it's associated safety systems (*) being completely willing to sacrifice the aircraft to "win" an encounter or otherwise achieve it's goals. In other words, an air force does not need AI that can completely dominate human pilots. It simply needs AI that is "mostly similar in performance", and when combined the advantages mentioned above, means that such aircraft will be significantly better in terms of fighting capability. Of course, that is just raw combat, not other areas of flight where greater human intelligence is of more value.

LanceH 6y ago
AI can also fly past black/red out thresholds. Even in current aircraft that would be add capability. But having that in the design phase may open up all sorts of possibilities.
- fatbird 6y ago
  I'm sure someone in these programs has speculated what air combat would look like between AIs where body-based thresholds are removed and machine learning has developed new tactics that are only applicable in a pure AI arena. I'd be really interested in seeing those speculations.
  - AnotherGoodName 6y ago
    I can't help but think a drone aircraft is essentially the same as a guided missile except the exploding pieces are modular rather than exploding itself and thus the majority of it is re-usable. We already shoot missiles at other missiles. Drones will make that cheaper. In other words i think the biggest change will be in the economics of war. War will become much cheaper in the same way SpaceX's reusable rockets made space travel much cheaper.
    - mNovak 6y ago
      I agree war will become a numbers game even moreso than it already is, by taking out the 'incalculable' losses of human life on both sides of an engagement. But modern combat systems are definitely not cheap!

hailwren 6y ago

The fifth generation of fighter aircraft marked a significant departure from the idea of a fighter jet being anything like what we think of as a fighter jet. They're now designed and employed as fighter 'platforms'. Instead of zipping around the battlefield guns and missiles ablaze in 1-on-1 combat, they're low observable long-range systems designed to understand and disrupt the battlefield by employing their electronic and long-range missile systems. These AI are a natural extension of that. I imagine the 6th generation of fighter platforms will be commanding swarms of fighter drones to do the fighter part of their role.

enkid 6y ago
The US Air Force is already looking at this. I believe the plan wouldn't be to tie it to a specific "generation" of fighter, and will allow fifth, and maybe even fourth generation fighters to lead a "swarm" of fighters. https://afresearchlab.com/technology/vanguards/successstories/skyborg https://afresearchlab.com/technology/vanguards/successstorie...
- fakedang 6y ago
  The British Navy were already looking at fully automated dronecraft carriers back in 2015-16 too. Using smaller drones as armaments instead of missiles and the like.
low_common 6y ago
I'd imagine one of the (forget the name, the big planes with radar that buzz around the battle space), could handle a swarm of drones from a long distance. Not sure that it'd make sense to have a speedy jet out there doing that.
- iamshs 6y ago
  Gremlins concept, deployed from C-130?
- freeone3000 6y ago
  AWACS is the role, E-3 Sentry is the current plane. It's a 707 full of radar, but it's also a giant flying target. If you're going to link a bunch of drones to one platform, the drone controller is going to need a lot more survivability.

vidanay 6y ago

Meatbags are G-limited. There is an immediate advantage to maneuverability when you remove the human.

dragontamer 6y ago

Ah, WW2 style fighters are among my favorite games. I don't think its realistic, but its still an advancement of AI. I'd see this as an advancement like "AlphaGo" or "Deep Blue" moment. But for a more obscure game with somewhat realistic implications (only somewhat, WW2 style fighters don't exist anymore in the modern world).

briggers 6y ago

It’s important to note this is just within visual range dogfighting/BFM. Also just guns, and also perfect enemy state information. Important progress but it’s super early. Beyond visual range/BVR, coordination with wingmen and many other higher-level tasks still to come (or are still secret).

zoomablemind 6y ago

> [...The AI exhibited “superhuman aiming ability” during the simulation, Mock said...] > [...Somewhere, the infamous Red Baron is no doubt laughing in amazement...] The infamous Red Baron would likely ask what does AI pilot use for eyes? In a classic dogfight, spotting your enemy before he sees you is an enormous advantage. Loosing the sight while in pursuit often equates to loosing the fight (thus going to sun or clouds for cover). If AI was strapped into simulator's digital feed for exact positioning (basically as if manning a game's AI craft), then it had "God's eyes". This kind of superadvantage may be warranted in a game to compensate for usually otherwise inferior in-game AI abilities. However, when plugging a whole computer rack for AI, this sight-advantage would definitely create a biased environment (for the purposes of meaningful comparison). I wonder how would the AI fare if it relied on CV for its positioning?

tosser0001 6y ago

I'd be curious to know when the last actual read-world dog fight actually happened. Maybe there were one or two during the Gulf War? At any rate it seems to be going the way of the cavalry charge.

bargle0 6y ago
2019: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogfight#2019_Indo-Pakistan_aerial_skirmish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogfight#2019_Indo-Pakistan_ae... Unless you're talking guns-only (the DARPA simulation discussed in this thread was guns-only).

cushychicken 6y ago

One of the major weaknesses of fighter aircraft is the pilot. Not their skills or abilities: the requirement for a soft, squishy human that deforms under G forces to pilot the thing is a disadvantage. The person in the cockpit is the most breakable part of the system. Everything else on the jet is capable of withstanding far more material strain. Just being able to replace a human-driven fighter jet with one that is piloted by an AI - even a comparatively dumb one - would be an advantage for fighters. The AI driven jet would be more maneuverable straight out of the gate.

nostrademons 6y ago
It's also by far the limiting resource on aircraft production. It takes 18 years to grow a human to the point where they can pilot a jet, and then a few years more to train them. Many years more to train them really well. In any sort of war of attrition, you'll run out of trained pilots long before you run out of planes. The Japanese weren't defeated in the Pacific because they ran out of planes, they were defeated because they ran out of pilots. At the time of the Marianas Turkey Shoot, Japan still had a large carrier force (9) and a large number of aircraft (750), but their pilots were all green, and so weren't very effective in combat. The Battle of Santa Cruz Islands is considered a strategic victory for the U.S. even though it was a huge tactical defeat, because it depleted the stock of trained pilots enough that Japan wasn't able to mount effective resistance for the rest of the war.
- cushychicken 6y ago
  The Battle of Santa Cruz Islands is considered a strategic victory for the U.S. even though it was a huge tactical defeat, because it depleted the stock of trained pilots enough that Japan wasn't able to mount effective resistance for the rest of the war. Didn't know this. How sad. The more I learn about WWII and its abject brutality, the more I marvel at how much US culture fetishizes it. Related: this season of Revisionist History has a series about Curtis LeMay and the history of napalm that is equal parts fascinating and sickening.
  - gknoy 6y ago

alecfreud 6y ago

Is the AI Pilot given perfect 3D state space information about the opponent? Or is it using sensors and vision to build a state?

MontagFTB 6y ago
In this test the AI pilots were given perfect state information. No doubt they will introduce a fog of war at some point, complicating the AI’s job considerably.
mNovak 6y ago
I believe they mention it having perfect state info. Really the human vs AI match is an effective publicity stunt, the real competition was among 8 different AI, so a more fair matchup.
ris 6y ago
This. Reality has to deal with a lot of imperfect information about the location of enemies.

cbsmith 6y ago

On the other hand... if the AI can't even out perform in a simulation, you kind of have to worry about the model.

fmakunbound 6y ago

Watched the stream for this. Meat is not even close to competitive, and this with the AI limited to meat Gs and an aircraft that's designed around meat pilots. I feel sorry for the first meat pilots to find themselves "fighting" these systems.

iancmceachern 6y ago
I think the use of the term "Meat" highlights my greatest fear with robots fighting our wars for us, doing our killing for us. Our dismissal of our humanity, compassion and empathy. The warriors coming back from WW2 brought with them a deep desire to not do that anymore. The gamification of killing eachother. Calling ourselves "meat". In every other context, for thousands of years, we have been referring to ourselves as human beings, people, folks, neighbors, etc. Now at the very beginning of this technology we are throwing all that out and going with "meat". Contempt for the amazing gift that humanity is, thats what using "meat" to describe ourselves indicates.
- triangleman 6y ago
  They're made out of meat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tScAyNaRdQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tScAyNaRdQ By the way, I agree with you, it is unsettling to hear human beings reduced to such terms.
- lopmotr 6y ago
  I'm pretty sure humans will always value human life - on their own team. The greater danger is dehumanizing enemy humans which is a common technique to motivate soldiers to kill each other.

TheTruth321 6y ago

You can be my AI any time ...

waterhouse 6y ago

"With its weapons and defences under the immediate control of a positronic brain, it would be more manoeuvrable than any manned ship. With no room necessary for crewmen, for supplies, for water or air purifiers, it could carry more armour, more weapons and be more invulnerable than any ordinary ship. One ship with a positronic brain could defeat fleets of ordinary ships. Am I wrong?" -- Elijah Baley, "The Naked Sun", by Isaac Asimov

yboris 6y ago

PSA: The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots Banning autonomous weapons is a very important step humanity has to take. https://www.stopkillerrobots.org/ https://www.stopkillerrobots.org/

scarmig 6y ago
What happens if established liberal democracies get squeamish about killer robots, while rising states with alternative political models see them as a way to leapfrog existing disadvantageous colonial patterns?
- yboris 6y ago
  What are your thoughts about land mines and use of chemical gas in warfare?

lowbloodsugar 6y ago

No surprise. When making video game "AI", our challenge is not to figure out how to make a clever AI that can beat the player, but in making a system that can fail against the pathetic human in a believable way. Ironically, many of those failure modes involve having the AI do stupid human things, like forgetting to reload because stupid human brain/ears can't track exactly how many bullets have been fired just by listening to the BRRRRT of a machine gun. Or stepping out from cover at just the wrong time. Or calling to friends and thereby revealing position. Best one ever "I'm out!" or the variation "Reloading!" Someone here said (paraphrasing) "but it only takes a few tries for the humans to learn how to beat an AI in games like Dota". In war, you're dead. There is no second try. Maybe, if they managed to get telemetry out, the survivors can analyze the behavior, but so are the winners. There are also plenty of games where, no matter what, the humans do not win. Once this is combined with vehicles that do not need to obey "don't squish the human" physics, and humans are done.

amai 6y ago

Did they use Microsoft Flight Simulator?

hourislate 6y ago

Air Combat will be very different in the future. I don't believe dog fighting will even be a thing. AI, Stealth Technology, Hyper Sonic platforms, Drone Swarms, Satellite Warfare, etc seems to be the way things are going.

Paul-ish 6y ago

I'm ready for a remake of that 2005 film "Stealth" that features an AI pilot.

tsuru 6y ago
Macross Plus would be better

cwoolfe 6y ago

Isn't this simply an issue of domain? Of course an AI will win in the simulator; have that AI drive a real plane against a real pilot in the real sky and see what happens.

krishna_sh 6y ago

For those interested in the subject of autonomy of weapons, Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War by Paul Scharre[1] is an excellent book. [1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073VXYD5P https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073VXYD5P

hindsightbias 6y ago

This is a slippery slope. For all the failings of humans, most air-to-air conflict has been within visual range. That's because we don't trust sensors/intel/decision-making/airspace beyond that range to not blow up the wrong thing. Airspace is filled with lots of non-fighters filled with passengers. Once we (and they) go to unmanned, then the latency of decisions will require less up-close fighting and much longer range engagements. Acro performance won't even be a thing. Cheaper, more efficient platforms will result in more platforms carrying more missiles shooting in much bigger hairballs. I'll take old-style few elite knights on horses swinging at each other over the hordes of drone infantry decimating a country-side.

bosswipe 6y ago

We continue to rush headlong into autonomous robot warfare without any consideration of the consequences. Humanity continues to disappoint.

hazeii 6y ago

And how likely is this to be needed? Perhaps it would be better to spend the money elsewhere.

aurizon 6y ago

There is a continuum - early spads, tossing bombs, shooting rifles - then machine guns (MG's) on axis, then gunner steered MG's, then axis rockets - then radar rockets - then AI rockets - then AI planes with AI rockets, then AI rockets with AI submunitions, and sub-sub munitions. Later AI's abd AI rockets capable of 100+ G turns. I see the fighter space fully non-survivable for manned fighters, with 100+ G opponents. Overlay this with mature jamming on 4 or more sublevels. I can see Tesla self driving AI packages, shaped to fit to be the teachable AI's that are NOW capable of running these shows. Same applies to high speed anti tank/truck/ship remote killers. High level management inertia in the Air Force hierarchy has been stalling these developments. You can bet Russia and China are on all this, so we must adopt ASAP while we have the electronics lead?

albertTJames 6y ago

Militarized AI is nothing to celebrate. It should be banned or at least controlled with international agreements. 200K people died due to the atomic bomb, but AI weapons will not cause such apparent destruction. They will continue to be improved and integrated into the military and our culture. Because they will never be so scary to cause an outcry from the public or the experts, and politicians will not feel obliged to control them seriously. Until it becomes completely accepted that flying robots kill human beings every other day... oh but wait. Already the case, never mind. It is okay I guess, as long as you are born in the country equipped with it. I had an interview with Improbable in London, the CEO of their "Defense" research arm is a complete nutjob without any care for ethics or forward-thinking into the risk of what he is building. And that's a tech startup, I can't even imagine what's the mindset in the R&D labs of the old-school defence industry. Probably ridiculously entitled and self-congratulatory.

Animats 6y ago

The USAF needs this to get out of the F-35 cost problem. The F-35 costs so much they can't afford enough. So they have to figure out ways to do more with fewer manned aircraft. (Trying to get rid of the A-10 was the last bad idea in that direction.)

lifeisstillgood 6y ago

Does anyone have a good primer on (and I guess this is embarrassing to not know it) modern warfare and the statistics. What I think I am looking for is a short Dungeons and Dragons style combat set of rules, and a blog post walking you through the issues. I mean something like "Jet fighter A: can fire missile X with 50% chance of hitting other jet at range 200mi"

nscalf 6y ago
You not knowing in any level of detail is intentional. At best, the US military might have that under lock and key. These are more or less the most secretive projects a military has. If specs like "we sort of suck at x distance" were released, you give away a massive edge. Also, there is most definitely false info like that going around somewhere, so even if you find something, give that a lot of skepticism. Things like this are as much a war of intelligence as it is combat. I remember a couple months ago, a video explaining the physics of a submarine being blown up showed up here. That was the first time I learned that a strategy for submarine warfare was to target an explosion under the center of the enemy sub, causing the water to rush up and creating a pressure differential that would crack the sub. Does that mean that is how sub warfare is done now? Or if that's the standard attack vector? Or that sub warfare would even be done with torpedoes now? No. The general public, and probably people not actively in the military with top secret clearance, only get bits and pieces of modern warfare strategy. Edit: When I said the military might have those specs under lock and key, I meant my understanding is that the military is extremely compartmentalized and, aside from the highest ranking generals, there is almost no data aggregation on the details of what is capable.

oedmarap 6y ago

> AI still has a long way to go before the Air Force pilots would be ready to hand over the stick to an artificial intelligence during combat, DARPA officials said. It seems to me that rival states who also develop AI-enhanced systems for their respective fleets may do a different cost-benefit analysis and throw caution to the wind on that point. A foreign fighter craft such as a MIG, traditionally with lower maneuverability when pitted against the likes of an F-22 (and similarly well-piloted), can eke out a significant equalizing advantage if flown by an advanced AI system; especially under the duress of protracted skirmishes. And let's not forget the industrial cost of building AI-powered jets at scale vs. training highly-skilled human pilots en masse. That's already showing significant ROI in the form of Predator drones. I think combat-ready AI fighter jets in the US will progress along a development roadmap that matches their growing need during acts of deterrence, rather than during full-scale war. But when multiple states have sufficient AI capability to go tit-for-tat without loss of life, then that would signal an ability to conduct more strategic "stress-tests" that carry with them a significant possibility of escalation.

AcerbicZero 6y ago

DARPA has been fighting the last war for ~30 years and this is no exception. AI will always have an advantage when all the variables a known and can be calculated, because if we're honest, modern air combat in a radar dense environment is pretty much just a series of math problems. (between 4th generation fighters anyway) I'm all for seeing if AI can come up with solutions to tactical problems that pilots can't, and as a training tool this might be very useful, I just don't see much value in this particular coverage of the topic.

notaround12312 6y ago

Having human pilots is going to play out the same way cavalry charges did in WW1. Old out of touch generals who romanticize how things where back in the day sending airmen to death needlessly. The inability to change and adapt to new technologies plagues the US airforce and navy. Resulting in both of them being completely miss-equipped for what any war that doesn't involve fighting impoverished herdspeople would look like today. Only a fraction of both's budget is spent on systems that are actually good at anything other than showboating and being profit centers for mil-contractors. The majority of their budgets are captured by outdated manmetal (surface ships/pilot'd aircraft) most of which would be expended very quickly if a conflict ever did break out. God forbid we ever have another conventional war but if we do you can look forward to having a couple dozen hypersonic glide vehicles (costing pennies on the dollar) sinking entire carrier groups in minutes. Swarms of drones just flying past over-priced f-35's, letting them expend all their munitions (which probably cost more than the drones), and still making it to hit their intended targets. But the US navy's still got some kinda ok submarines so they got that going for them, the airforce.... idk I guess they can keep talking about "stealth" (fancy paint) and how its effective at avoiding detection from the underfunded military's of 3rd world dictators.

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lopmotr 6y ago

I know I'm not supposed to detract from the main point, but something is a bit odd about this company: A) It's classified as a Small Disadvantaged Business (SDB). B) All its work seems to be for the government, and this is reinforced by its mission statement. C) "The Federal Government’s goal is to award at least 5% of federal contracting dollars to SDBs." I wonder to what extent it's valuable work vs just compliance with a kind of charity program?

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Ari_Ugwu 6y ago

"The Feeling of Power" by Asimov feels like an appropriate mention here.

tialaramex 6y ago
Or perhaps "Malak" by Peter Watts.

pkaye 6y ago

> All eight teams will compete in each of the three scheduled trials. They will use the JSBSim open-source flight dynamics model for simulation environment and the open-source FlightGear Flight Simulator for the visual system. The simulated aircraft for the Trials is the publically available, unclassified FlightGear version of an F-15C fighter aircraft. Interestingly they are using the FlightGear flight simulator.

ganafagol 6y ago

352 comments and counting. So sad to see so many talented and smart people burn their energy discussing war machines.

pdfernhout 6y ago

Military robots like drones are ironic because they are created essentially to force humans to work like robots in an industrialized social order. Why not just create industrial robots to do the work instead? Nuclear weapons are ironic because they are about using space age systems to fight over oil and land. Why not just use advanced materials as found in nuclear missiles to make renewable energy sources (like windmills or solar panels) to replace oil, or why not use rocketry to move into space by building space habitats for more land? Biological weapons like genetically-engineered plagues are ironic because they are about using advanced life-altering biotechnology to fight over which old-fashioned humans get to occupy the planet. Why not just use advanced biotech to let people pick their skin color, or to create living arkologies and agricultural abundance for everyone everywhere? These militaristic socio-economic ironies would be hilarious if they were not so deadly serious. ... Likewise, even United States three-letter agencies like the NSA and the CIA, as well as their foreign counterparts, are becoming ironic institutions in many ways. Despite probably having more computing power per square foot than any other place in the world, they seem not to have thought much about the implications of all that computer power and organized information to transform the world into a place of abundance for all. Cheap computing makes possible just about cheap everything else, as does the ability to make better designs through shared computing. ... There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all. So, while in the past, we had "nothing to fear but fear itself", the thing to fear these days is ironically ... irony. :-) ... ==== The above is from: "Recognizing irony is key to transcending militarism" -- an essay I wrote in 2010: https://pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html https://pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transce...

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Fjolsvith 6y ago

Air Force General Thompson interviewed Elon Musk at the Air Warfare Symposium this year. [1] It was, in a nutshell, a reality check for the Air Force's combat pilots, who were present in the audience, that they were no longer top dog, and had to either get on board with the new mission of drone warfare, or get off the train. 1. https://youtu.be/sp8smJFaKYE https://youtu.be/sp8smJFaKYE

slowhand09 6y ago

Interesting competition. I just finished "Ghost Fleet" which is chock full of this tech. Eye-opening stuff when you look deeper. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Fleet_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Fleet_(novel)

foxyv 6y ago

I watched this demo and noticed that the major advantage the AI pilot had was that it had near perfect gunnery. The human pilot had superior BFM and would have blown the AI out of the air if he had the reaction time for an instantaneous gun solution like the AI. A semi-autonomous mode where a half action trigger automatically maneuvers into a gun solution for the human pilot would have won him the match handily.