3 ms·

China's Top Air Force Pilots Are Training AI in Fighter Combat

2 points by mardiyah 5y ago

salawat 5y ago
This... Is why we can't have nice things. This is why every researcher should be asking themselves "is the world ready for this yet?" Why I'm increasingly convinced that the academic can no longer be content to play the role of a "neutral articulator or enumerator of techné" and must strive to think out what applications they are enabling. Let me enumerate the diplomatic and national security highlights of the coming years. China trains AI to fight. U.S. has to respond in kind, but more slowly or in secret due to outcry on autonomous weapons research and actually having to deal with those loathsome constituents views on how and what things get done when. China manages to plow ahead in AI and starts enumerating the space creating new possibilities within the Overton window. Depending on how the world takes it, and to what degree they manage to minimize or otherwise manage to skew the M.A.D equation to favor them in addition to continued success at managing to control or otherwise defuse internal strife, normal diplomatic measures may begin to lose efficacy in terms of the international community's braking influence, setting the stage for "hard times" or a reignition of Cold War era status quo where research of questionable constructiveness becomes easier to swallow in the name of National Security, bloating defense spending, and starving everything else. This is all assuming there isn't some major disaster that proves near impossible to effectively contain. Interesting times ahead.
- yorwba 5y ago
  > U.S. has to respond in kind, but more slowly or in secret due to outcry on autonomous weapons research and actually having to deal with those loathsome constituents views on how and what things get done when. You're totally off about this. The US announced their superhuman AI pilot about a year ago already: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24232307 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24232307 You could see this Chinese announcement as the response, although someone was probably working on this before the US revealed their capabilities, just with slightly less pressure.

2 points by mardiyah 5y ago

This... Is why we can't have nice things. This is why every researcher should be asking themselves "is the world ready for this yet?" Why I'm increasingly convinced that the academic can no longer be content to play the role of a "neutral articulator or enumerator of techné" and must strive to think out what applications they are enabling. Let me enumerate the diplomatic and national security highlights of the coming years. China trains AI to fight. U.S. has to respond in kind, but more slowly or in secret due to outcry on autonomous weapons research and actually having to deal with those loathsome constituents views on how and what things get done when. China manages to plow ahead in AI and starts enumerating the space creating new possibilities within the Overton window. Depending on how the world takes it, and to what degree they manage to minimize or otherwise manage to skew the M.A.D equation to favor them in addition to continued success at managing to control or otherwise defuse internal strife, normal diplomatic measures may begin to lose efficacy in terms of the international community's braking influence, setting the stage for "hard times" or a reignition of Cold War era status quo where research of questionable constructiveness becomes easier to swallow in the name of National Security, bloating defense spending, and starving everything else. This is all assuming there isn't some major disaster that proves near impossible to effectively contain. Interesting times ahead.

yorwba 5y ago
> U.S. has to respond in kind, but more slowly or in secret due to outcry on autonomous weapons research and actually having to deal with those loathsome constituents views on how and what things get done when. You're totally off about this. The US announced their superhuman AI pilot about a year ago already: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24232307 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24232307 You could see this Chinese announcement as the response, although someone was probably working on this before the US revealed their capabilities, just with slightly less pressure.