15 ms·

The Rise of A.I. Fighter Pilots

98 points by jbegley 5y ago

a4isms 5y ago
News "articles" that speak to the future of the war and spend most of their words describing new, expensive technology that will replace the existing military approach sound an awful lot like pieces planted by public relations firms working for military contractors. The purpose is to generate the public's appetite for military spending and to prepare the way for aggressive lobbying. pg wrote at length about the value of public relations in "The Submarine:" http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html The above does not mean that TFA does not have value. As pg said: "Good PR firms... give reporters stories that are true, but whose truth favors their clients."
- credit_guy 5y ago
  The public in the West has been sold the idea that war is outdated for about 75 years. But in about one month from now, the public will wake up to the fact that the this idea is not quite unanimously shared, and in particular Putin does not care for it that much. In which case, the old advice of Teddy Roosevelt still carries some weight: "Speak softly, but carry a big stick".
melling 5y ago
We don’t crank out planes like we used to: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skunk_Works https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skunk_Works Removing humans from the cockpit could increase innovation. Make them a fraction of the size and cost without humans
- Arubis 5y ago
  Removing humans from the cockpit frees designers up to do a lot more than save weight. The big restriction with human pilots is a ceiling for how much G you can pull before your precious human cargo blacks out. Silicon has no such restrictions; you can turn as hard as your fuselage will allow.
  - mc32 5y ago
    Also endurance. Now you're only limited to hardware endurance and refueling capabilities rather than pilot fatigue --affording much better performance.
    - melling 5y ago
      An unmanned hypersonic SR-71 successor. Lower speed reconnaissance jets that are always in the air? Refueled in the air from drone planes.
      - nradov 5y ago
        Satellites are the SR-71 successor. Lower speed persistent reconnaissance is provided by the low-observable RQ-170 and RQ-180 drones.
    - nradov 5y ago
      Humans can endure for quite a long time if they have to. A manned B-2 bomber flew a 44 hour combat mission. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/36643/u-s-strategic-command-tweet-throws-shade-on-russias-long-range-bomber-mission https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/36643/u-s-strategic-co...
  - pantulis 5y ago
    Conspiracy hat on: maybe that's what all the UAP craze is about.
  - nradov 5y ago
    In the real world ability to pull more G's is of limited value. It mostly only matters when defending against a missile after all else has failed. Building an airframe strong enough to handle that load incurs a huge weight penalty. The UCAVs built so far are actually stressed to lower G loads than manned tactical aircraft.
  - deepnotderp 5y ago
    Also, imho AI fundamentally changes how machines of war are made. Currently, a machine must be made expensive and sophisticated since a human is inside it, and if it's already expensive, may as well add some more expense to make it a bit better, and a bit more, etc. By contrast, with AI, the question becomes a matter of performance per dollar. If I can swarm an enemy with hundreds of cheap fighter jets, then it's okay for me to lose half of them. This is existential to the US imho, since the US generally always has the best equipment period, but at a very high cost.
- enkid 5y ago
  I think that's already happening. Airframes may not be changing that much, but the capabilities those airframes are carrying have changed a lot, and that's probably a lot more important than the vessel itself. Look at the recent efforts for an F-15 to carry an umammed wingman. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/34982/highly-modified-air-launched-loyal-wingman-drone-tested-with-air-force-f-15-eagle https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/34982/highly-modified-...
onepointsixC 5y ago
For those who had not watched the AlphaDogfight competition, the most remarkable thing was not that the AI beat the Human fighter pilot. The most remarkable thing was the extreme gap in performance between the best AI and second and third place AI's. It wasn't even close. An AI that is marginally worse could still be able to beat a human but will lose consistently over and over against a better AI. This bodes very poorly for any nation that falls behind in the AI race. As well as any nation who's best and brightest minds refuse to contribute while their adversaries have no such qualms.
- belter 5y ago
  Nothing a proper EMP weapon will not sort out. https://www.doh.wa.gov/portals/1/documents/pubs/320-090_elecpuls_fs.pdf https://www.doh.wa.gov/portals/1/documents/pubs/320-090_elec...
  - CodeGlitch 5y ago
    From your link: > There are two basic ways to protect or harden items against EMP effects. The first method is metallic shielding. Shields are made of a continuous piece of metal such as steel or copper. A metal enclosure generally does not fully shield the interior because of the small holes that are likely to exist. Therefore, this type of shielding often contains additional elements to create the barrier. Commonly, only a fraction of a millimeter of a metal is needed to supply adequate protection. This shield must completely surround the item to be hardened. > The second method, tailored hardening, is a more cost-effective way of hardening. In this method, only the most vulnerable elements and circuits are redesigned to be more rugged. The more rugged elements will be able to withstand much higher currents. This method has shown unpredictable failures in testing, though it is thought it may be useful to make existing systems less vulnerable. Seems reasonable to provide EMP shielding to a drone?
    - sklargh 5y ago
      Since we are capable of EMP-hardening very large airframes (see Nightwatch, Looking Glass, SAM) I assume shielding crucial systems on a drone would be an initial design challenge but not impossible.
dmead 5y ago
Do you guys remember in the digg days when somebody was outed as a literal pentagon employee who would post over and over about the latest military hardware? I wish i could find some evidence of this. I just have my memories about it.
- bigodbiel 5y ago
  There certainly are, the problem is the burden of proof. One case in particular was the USS Nimitz UAP video. It first leaked on the conspiracy Above Top Secret forum in 2009 (iirc); the now disclosed video, comms transcript,m. Obviously no one believed (and this being a conspiracy forum!), not that OP behavior helped with credibility. But still interesting to have such vindicated after all these years.
  - dmead 5y ago
    That's got very little to do with what I'm talking about The incident I'm talking about was activity duty army officers being paid by the pentagon to do propoganda work in the early social media years. They would post pictures and video (in broad daylight) of the latest weapons or jets and something with tag lines like "these guys are doing a great job!". The user was later outed as coming from the pentagon or some base in the northeast. I don't know what the ufo videos have to do with what I'm talking about. The implication here is that the times article is also just a work of propaganda that tries to justify the absurd amounts of money being pumped into defense.
hirundo 5y ago
It doesn't seem to me that aerial combat is vastly simpler than ground combat. If a robot pilot can accurately identify friend and foe, and maneuver effectively to target the latter, then likely we are not a lot farther from doing the same with an infantry robot.
- nindalf 5y ago
  How do you identify civilians on the ground? Are they as easily identifiable at a glance like objects in the air? Do they all carry transponders to identify themselves wirelessly? We’re certainly far away from effective solutions for either but one problem is much easier to solve.
  - baybal2 5y ago
    Civilians are not identified, and every army today in an active conflict disregard Geneva convention.
  - cjbgkagh 5y ago
    “Anyone who runs, is a VC. Anyone who stands still, is a well-disciplined VC!”
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- buscoquadnary 5y ago
  Moving through the air is a lot easier than moving on ground. No mud, slopes, or rubble to deal with.
- jetbooster 5y ago
  I would claim it is vastly simpler. going from one position to another in a aerial vehicle is much simpler than navigating a cityscape, a swamp, or even simply an uneven field. In the aerial domain, your environment is for all intents and purposes empty, and you operate over and above a surface which may have targets on it. As long as you ensure your manuevers don't intersect the ground manuevering is mostly point in the direction you want to go. aerial -> aerial is even simpler, as these engagements are long range and often significantly above the ground, so other than maintaining altitude you can treat the whole universe as empty except you and your target.
boppo1 5y ago
I wonder how this (and drone tech) affects helicopter pilots. I briefly considered enlisting to try and be an army helicopter pilot, but the contract is a 12 year obligation. I just couldn't get over the thought that 5 years from now, AI and drone based countermeasures will be like nothing we've ever seen. I don't trust the army to figure that one out before losing a bunch of people.
- imtringued 5y ago
  Artillery is still relevant after decades of being declared obsolete.
1980phipsi 5y ago
I would imagine that these AI fighter pilots may still need a human being so that they don't shoot done civilian planes or something. How good are state of the art drones at flying in inclement weather with poor communication to home base?
- imtringued 5y ago
  Absolutely terrible?
- CodeGlitch 5y ago
  Civilian planes fly with transponders - something that you can receive with a $20 bit of hardware. Military aircraft do not turn their transponders on unless they want the world to know where they are.
  - mLuby 5y ago
    Not all civilian planes do this, nor other airborne objects like skydivers.
dkobia 5y ago
I am reminded of the very awesome book Kill Decision by Daniel Suarez -- A fictional account of a future with A.I. fighter pilots with permission to kill.
dirtyid 5y ago
IMO ramifications of AI fighters pilots would be more clear if writings focused on superhuman abilities to evade, which obliviates much of modern warfare underpinnings. Superior mental performance + kinematic performance in purpose built drones that operate at highers Gs = shifting force balance towards offense since when measures becomes obsolete / unworkable. Anti air weapons work well when autonomous missile can arbitrage the performance limitations of meatbags. But without meatbags, the sweet spot performance envelope are a step up - fighter sized vehicles that can carry more sensors, more compute, larger engines and more fuel than smaller vehicles like missiles. It's dodging in bullettime made real. Carriers can rationalize their existence currently because entire carrier group + air wings has enough countermeasures to defend against saturation attack from (for optimistic demonstration) 100 incoming fighters and their missiles. This limits threat to other large states. But if AI can evade most of the counter measures that you only need 10 drones to penetrate a carrier group bubble, and considering these are unmanned that can be sold to almost any country without need to sustain complex airforce institutions, then the entire notion of modern naval power from a few capable projection platform dies. Global security balance is going to be decided even more by local superiority when significant force projection from around the world becomes untenable.
- nradov 5y ago
  That's not how it works in the real world. Evading missiles, or avoiding being shot at in the first place, is more about tactics, signature management, EW, situational awareness, and defensive systems. The performance limitations of the "meatbags" are seldom the deciding factor.
  - dirtyid 5y ago
    It is one deciding factor, among the other you listed, which I already highlighted - sensors, compute, engines etc. I'm just pointing out a fighter sized UAV platform with no human limitation, more tech / countermeasures and fuel is going to have dramatically better performance envelope for evading AA, especially missiles with limited deltaV. Which is arguably more significant than dogfighting since dogfighting is a means to an end - destroying some significant ground target. Highly maneuverable UAV platforms that can trivially penetrate air defenses is more scary than AI fighters that can trivially shoot down other fighters, because being good at evasion means they wouldn't even need to dogfight.
neonate 5y ago
https://archive.is/ODgL0 https://archive.is/ODgL0
sandworm101 5y ago
>>A fighter plane equipped with artificial intelligence could eventually execute tighter turns, take greater risks, and get off better shots than human pilots. No. (1) An AI-controlled fighter is still limited by the laws of physics. In 99% of circumstances the pilots ability to "pull G" is not the deciding factor in maneuvering. Pulling 10+ is only possible for a wing, ANY wing, in very specific circumstances of speed an air pressure. Most realworld dogfighting occurs well below human G limitations. (2) Can AI take greater risks? Fighter pilots in combat don't avoid risk out of fear for their own live. That isn't part of their thinking. They avoid risk because the loss of their aircraft will have knock-on impacts to the rest of the operation. Fighter pilots do not protect themselves, they protect a host of other aircraft and people standing behind them. The concept that an AI pilot will press an attack where a human pilot would back off out of fear evidences a lack of understanding. Fighter pilots don't back down for such reasons. Listen to the recordings/transcripts of pilots in dogfights over Vietnam. They are aggressive to a fault, once in an turning fight pressing the attack no matter the likely outcome. (3) What "better shots" will these AI be taking? Missiles are not arrows. They are autonomous vehicles. Whether an AI or a human pilot launches them is of little consequence to a sidewinder. There is a place (cranking) where an AI pilot might be able to better perform the maneuver and better-guide a missile, but that isn't AI rather than a basic autopilot-type assist (holding target at a particular angle). As for gun shots, AI is no needed to calculate a trajectory and fire the cannot at the appropriate moment to most likely intercept the target. That is well within non-AI tech.
ulnarkressty 5y ago
This is what I don't understand about sci-fi shows set up in space - why bother with a pilot? Surely one can see the advantage of not having to waste space and life-support for a squishy meatball. Apparently nobody saw this coming, much like Picard carrying his 5 physical eBooks with him. That or close-up shots of some radiator don't really make for compelling TV.
- mLuby 5y ago
  Good sci-fi is about humans, bad sci-fi is about technology. You're right though, no fighter pilots in space and no stealth in space are two lessons the entertainment industry has been slow to learn. The Expanse (which is amazing—go watch 3 eps) strikes a good balance: pilots work in tandem with ship software the fly; they're more like navigators with AI helmsman. And it looks like gunners are prioritizing targets for the ship's AI to shoot, not swinging the turrets around by hand like Skywalker & Solo in A New Hope.
  - nirav72 5y ago
    This is why I've always loved the Expanse series of books and the TV show. AI is there, but its not up front and central. In fact, its never really even mentioned in any of the books. It's just treated as ambient expert system software in the background. It's just there and not discussed.
- oneoff786 5y ago
  That was my biggest pet peeve with the mandalorian season 1. Star Wars is fairly clear that droids are at or below human level competence, and tend to behave as generally intelligent entities but maybe with some dorky code of laws they must obey. The mandalorian throws in droids that have machine like precision and just wipe the floor killing dozens of people in a firefight, taking no cover, and missing no shots, 360 no scope dual wielding. It broke a lot of unspoken rules about how the world worked.
  - akiselev 5y ago
    > The mandalorian throws in droids that have machine like precision and just wipe the floor killing dozens of people in a firefight, taking no cover, and missing no shots, 360 no scope dual wielding. It broke a lot of unspoken rules about how the world worked. The first IG assassin droid appeared in Empire Strikes Back the movie and was a boss on the train level of the N64 game. In canon, most of the IG series are unique one offs so they're not exactly mass produced droids found all over the galaxy like maintenance drones (with the exception of the IG-86?). They're very high value items that get reprogrammed and passed from organization to organization.
Terry_Roll 5y ago
They have come a long way since the AI mine was invented!
devoutsalsa 5y ago
I wonder if we can just build some relatively cheap drones with video game AI on hardcore level and unleash swarms of them over enemy airspace.
Seattle3503 5y ago
One interesting implication of AI warfare is an increase in the tempo of war. Decisions won't happen on human timescales, but some of war and combat is making ethical judgments in the heat of the moment. We will need to make war AI that can evaluate moral dilemmas. Alternatively we will neglect to program for ethics, and the consequences will be unpleasant.
- oneoff786 5y ago
  Unlikely in any sort of near term. AI isn’t going to be making strategic decisions for the poorly defined word that is reality. It’s not like StarCraft where you can reduce things to a math problem. There’s all sorts of unique contextual knowledge that makes it impossible for a simple model to understand.
VectorLock 5y ago
Lots of hypotheticals about the capabilities of missiles vs. jets and recently I found this YouTube page thats new that has videos of setting up simulations in Command: Modern Operations with surprisingly accurate (to my untrained eye) simulations for something you can get on Steam. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJXWJ-Px5tU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJXWJ-Px5tU
AlexanderTheGr8 5y ago
I am surprised to not see any mention of the book - "Army of None", which is about autonomous weaponry. A review by Bill Gates: https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Army-of-None https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Army-of-None
foxyv 5y ago
The best AI dog fighter in existence is an Aim-9X sidewinder. Short range air to air missiles with helmet cuing systems have gotten to the point it's essentially a see to kill environment. Thrust vectoring, 3D IR mapping, countermeasure rejection, optics, laser fusing. Weapon engagement zones are sometimes measured less than the warhead's effective radius. Absolute insanity. However, there are some serious advantages to having an AI autopilot for dog-fights. Stuff like failover for G-lock (pilot loses consciousness during maneuver) and jinking to avoid shots makes a great deal of sense. Dogfight assist for gunnery would also be pretty sweet. Something similar to the gun PAC on a warthog maybe where you hold secondary trigger and instead of stabilizing the jet it gets the nose on the lead target indicator. Another case is when drone fighters are intentionally sent out clean (no missiles) to avoid an incident and enter a merge unexpectedly. Also there could be cases where large numbers of cheap junk fighters are sent against small numbers of expensive fighter drones. Not enough missiles for 5-1 ratios, but guns for the 5th jet may make the difference.

98 points by jbegley 5y ago

News "articles" that speak to the future of the war and spend most of their words describing new, expensive technology that will replace the existing military approach sound an awful lot like pieces planted by public relations firms working for military contractors. The purpose is to generate the public's appetite for military spending and to prepare the way for aggressive lobbying. pg wrote at length about the value of public relations in "The Submarine:" http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html The above does not mean that TFA does not have value. As pg said: "Good PR firms... give reporters stories that are true, but whose truth favors their clients."

credit_guy 5y ago
The public in the West has been sold the idea that war is outdated for about 75 years. But in about one month from now, the public will wake up to the fact that the this idea is not quite unanimously shared, and in particular Putin does not care for it that much. In which case, the old advice of Teddy Roosevelt still carries some weight: "Speak softly, but carry a big stick".

melling 5y ago

We don’t crank out planes like we used to: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skunk_Works https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skunk_Works Removing humans from the cockpit could increase innovation. Make them a fraction of the size and cost without humans

Arubis 5y ago
Removing humans from the cockpit frees designers up to do a lot more than save weight. The big restriction with human pilots is a ceiling for how much G you can pull before your precious human cargo blacks out. Silicon has no such restrictions; you can turn as hard as your fuselage will allow.
- mc32 5y ago
  Also endurance. Now you're only limited to hardware endurance and refueling capabilities rather than pilot fatigue --affording much better performance.
  - melling 5y ago
    An unmanned hypersonic SR-71 successor. Lower speed reconnaissance jets that are always in the air? Refueled in the air from drone planes.
    - nradov 5y ago
      Satellites are the SR-71 successor. Lower speed persistent reconnaissance is provided by the low-observable RQ-170 and RQ-180 drones.
  - nradov 5y ago
    Humans can endure for quite a long time if they have to. A manned B-2 bomber flew a 44 hour combat mission. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/36643/u-s-strategic-command-tweet-throws-shade-on-russias-long-range-bomber-mission https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/36643/u-s-strategic-co...
- pantulis 5y ago
  Conspiracy hat on: maybe that's what all the UAP craze is about.
- nradov 5y ago
  In the real world ability to pull more G's is of limited value. It mostly only matters when defending against a missile after all else has failed. Building an airframe strong enough to handle that load incurs a huge weight penalty. The UCAVs built so far are actually stressed to lower G loads than manned tactical aircraft.
- deepnotderp 5y ago
  Also, imho AI fundamentally changes how machines of war are made. Currently, a machine must be made expensive and sophisticated since a human is inside it, and if it's already expensive, may as well add some more expense to make it a bit better, and a bit more, etc. By contrast, with AI, the question becomes a matter of performance per dollar. If I can swarm an enemy with hundreds of cheap fighter jets, then it's okay for me to lose half of them. This is existential to the US imho, since the US generally always has the best equipment period, but at a very high cost.
enkid 5y ago
I think that's already happening. Airframes may not be changing that much, but the capabilities those airframes are carrying have changed a lot, and that's probably a lot more important than the vessel itself. Look at the recent efforts for an F-15 to carry an umammed wingman. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/34982/highly-modified-air-launched-loyal-wingman-drone-tested-with-air-force-f-15-eagle https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/34982/highly-modified-...

onepointsixC 5y ago

For those who had not watched the AlphaDogfight competition, the most remarkable thing was not that the AI beat the Human fighter pilot. The most remarkable thing was the extreme gap in performance between the best AI and second and third place AI's. It wasn't even close. An AI that is marginally worse could still be able to beat a human but will lose consistently over and over against a better AI. This bodes very poorly for any nation that falls behind in the AI race. As well as any nation who's best and brightest minds refuse to contribute while their adversaries have no such qualms.

belter 5y ago
Nothing a proper EMP weapon will not sort out. https://www.doh.wa.gov/portals/1/documents/pubs/320-090_elecpuls_fs.pdf https://www.doh.wa.gov/portals/1/documents/pubs/320-090_elec...
- CodeGlitch 5y ago
  From your link: > There are two basic ways to protect or harden items against EMP effects. The first method is metallic shielding. Shields are made of a continuous piece of metal such as steel or copper. A metal enclosure generally does not fully shield the interior because of the small holes that are likely to exist. Therefore, this type of shielding often contains additional elements to create the barrier. Commonly, only a fraction of a millimeter of a metal is needed to supply adequate protection. This shield must completely surround the item to be hardened. > The second method, tailored hardening, is a more cost-effective way of hardening. In this method, only the most vulnerable elements and circuits are redesigned to be more rugged. The more rugged elements will be able to withstand much higher currents. This method has shown unpredictable failures in testing, though it is thought it may be useful to make existing systems less vulnerable. Seems reasonable to provide EMP shielding to a drone?
  - sklargh 5y ago
    Since we are capable of EMP-hardening very large airframes (see Nightwatch, Looking Glass, SAM) I assume shielding crucial systems on a drone would be an initial design challenge but not impossible.

dmead 5y ago

Do you guys remember in the digg days when somebody was outed as a literal pentagon employee who would post over and over about the latest military hardware? I wish i could find some evidence of this. I just have my memories about it.

bigodbiel 5y ago
There certainly are, the problem is the burden of proof. One case in particular was the USS Nimitz UAP video. It first leaked on the conspiracy Above Top Secret forum in 2009 (iirc); the now disclosed video, comms transcript,m. Obviously no one believed (and this being a conspiracy forum!), not that OP behavior helped with credibility. But still interesting to have such vindicated after all these years.
- dmead 5y ago
  That's got very little to do with what I'm talking about The incident I'm talking about was activity duty army officers being paid by the pentagon to do propoganda work in the early social media years. They would post pictures and video (in broad daylight) of the latest weapons or jets and something with tag lines like "these guys are doing a great job!". The user was later outed as coming from the pentagon or some base in the northeast. I don't know what the ufo videos have to do with what I'm talking about. The implication here is that the times article is also just a work of propaganda that tries to justify the absurd amounts of money being pumped into defense.

hirundo 5y ago

It doesn't seem to me that aerial combat is vastly simpler than ground combat. If a robot pilot can accurately identify friend and foe, and maneuver effectively to target the latter, then likely we are not a lot farther from doing the same with an infantry robot.

nindalf 5y ago
How do you identify civilians on the ground? Are they as easily identifiable at a glance like objects in the air? Do they all carry transponders to identify themselves wirelessly? We’re certainly far away from effective solutions for either but one problem is much easier to solve.
- baybal2 5y ago
  Civilians are not identified, and every army today in an active conflict disregard Geneva convention.
- cjbgkagh 5y ago
  “Anyone who runs, is a VC. Anyone who stands still, is a well-disciplined VC!”
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
buscoquadnary 5y ago
Moving through the air is a lot easier than moving on ground. No mud, slopes, or rubble to deal with.
jetbooster 5y ago
I would claim it is vastly simpler. going from one position to another in a aerial vehicle is much simpler than navigating a cityscape, a swamp, or even simply an uneven field. In the aerial domain, your environment is for all intents and purposes empty, and you operate over and above a surface which may have targets on it. As long as you ensure your manuevers don't intersect the ground manuevering is mostly point in the direction you want to go. aerial -> aerial is even simpler, as these engagements are long range and often significantly above the ground, so other than maintaining altitude you can treat the whole universe as empty except you and your target.

boppo1 5y ago

I wonder how this (and drone tech) affects helicopter pilots. I briefly considered enlisting to try and be an army helicopter pilot, but the contract is a 12 year obligation. I just couldn't get over the thought that 5 years from now, AI and drone based countermeasures will be like nothing we've ever seen. I don't trust the army to figure that one out before losing a bunch of people.

imtringued 5y ago
Artillery is still relevant after decades of being declared obsolete.

1980phipsi 5y ago

I would imagine that these AI fighter pilots may still need a human being so that they don't shoot done civilian planes or something. How good are state of the art drones at flying in inclement weather with poor communication to home base?

imtringued 5y ago
Absolutely terrible?
CodeGlitch 5y ago
Civilian planes fly with transponders - something that you can receive with a $20 bit of hardware. Military aircraft do not turn their transponders on unless they want the world to know where they are.
- mLuby 5y ago
  Not all civilian planes do this, nor other airborne objects like skydivers.

dkobia 5y ago

I am reminded of the very awesome book Kill Decision by Daniel Suarez -- A fictional account of a future with A.I. fighter pilots with permission to kill.

dirtyid 5y ago

IMO ramifications of AI fighters pilots would be more clear if writings focused on superhuman abilities to evade, which obliviates much of modern warfare underpinnings. Superior mental performance + kinematic performance in purpose built drones that operate at highers Gs = shifting force balance towards offense since when measures becomes obsolete / unworkable. Anti air weapons work well when autonomous missile can arbitrage the performance limitations of meatbags. But without meatbags, the sweet spot performance envelope are a step up - fighter sized vehicles that can carry more sensors, more compute, larger engines and more fuel than smaller vehicles like missiles. It's dodging in bullettime made real. Carriers can rationalize their existence currently because entire carrier group + air wings has enough countermeasures to defend against saturation attack from (for optimistic demonstration) 100 incoming fighters and their missiles. This limits threat to other large states. But if AI can evade most of the counter measures that you only need 10 drones to penetrate a carrier group bubble, and considering these are unmanned that can be sold to almost any country without need to sustain complex airforce institutions, then the entire notion of modern naval power from a few capable projection platform dies. Global security balance is going to be decided even more by local superiority when significant force projection from around the world becomes untenable.

nradov 5y ago
That's not how it works in the real world. Evading missiles, or avoiding being shot at in the first place, is more about tactics, signature management, EW, situational awareness, and defensive systems. The performance limitations of the "meatbags" are seldom the deciding factor.
- dirtyid 5y ago
  It is one deciding factor, among the other you listed, which I already highlighted - sensors, compute, engines etc. I'm just pointing out a fighter sized UAV platform with no human limitation, more tech / countermeasures and fuel is going to have dramatically better performance envelope for evading AA, especially missiles with limited deltaV. Which is arguably more significant than dogfighting since dogfighting is a means to an end - destroying some significant ground target. Highly maneuverable UAV platforms that can trivially penetrate air defenses is more scary than AI fighters that can trivially shoot down other fighters, because being good at evasion means they wouldn't even need to dogfight.

neonate 5y ago

https://archive.is/ODgL0 https://archive.is/ODgL0

sandworm101 5y ago

>>A fighter plane equipped with artificial intelligence could eventually execute tighter turns, take greater risks, and get off better shots than human pilots. No. (1) An AI-controlled fighter is still limited by the laws of physics. In 99% of circumstances the pilots ability to "pull G" is not the deciding factor in maneuvering. Pulling 10+ is only possible for a wing, ANY wing, in very specific circumstances of speed an air pressure. Most realworld dogfighting occurs well below human G limitations. (2) Can AI take greater risks? Fighter pilots in combat don't avoid risk out of fear for their own live. That isn't part of their thinking. They avoid risk because the loss of their aircraft will have knock-on impacts to the rest of the operation. Fighter pilots do not protect themselves, they protect a host of other aircraft and people standing behind them. The concept that an AI pilot will press an attack where a human pilot would back off out of fear evidences a lack of understanding. Fighter pilots don't back down for such reasons. Listen to the recordings/transcripts of pilots in dogfights over Vietnam. They are aggressive to a fault, once in an turning fight pressing the attack no matter the likely outcome. (3) What "better shots" will these AI be taking? Missiles are not arrows. They are autonomous vehicles. Whether an AI or a human pilot launches them is of little consequence to a sidewinder. There is a place (cranking) where an AI pilot might be able to better perform the maneuver and better-guide a missile, but that isn't AI rather than a basic autopilot-type assist (holding target at a particular angle). As for gun shots, AI is no needed to calculate a trajectory and fire the cannot at the appropriate moment to most likely intercept the target. That is well within non-AI tech.

ulnarkressty 5y ago

This is what I don't understand about sci-fi shows set up in space - why bother with a pilot? Surely one can see the advantage of not having to waste space and life-support for a squishy meatball. Apparently nobody saw this coming, much like Picard carrying his 5 physical eBooks with him. That or close-up shots of some radiator don't really make for compelling TV.

mLuby 5y ago
Good sci-fi is about humans, bad sci-fi is about technology. You're right though, no fighter pilots in space and no stealth in space are two lessons the entertainment industry has been slow to learn. The Expanse (which is amazing—go watch 3 eps) strikes a good balance: pilots work in tandem with ship software the fly; they're more like navigators with AI helmsman. And it looks like gunners are prioritizing targets for the ship's AI to shoot, not swinging the turrets around by hand like Skywalker & Solo in A New Hope.
- nirav72 5y ago
  This is why I've always loved the Expanse series of books and the TV show. AI is there, but its not up front and central. In fact, its never really even mentioned in any of the books. It's just treated as ambient expert system software in the background. It's just there and not discussed.
oneoff786 5y ago
That was my biggest pet peeve with the mandalorian season 1. Star Wars is fairly clear that droids are at or below human level competence, and tend to behave as generally intelligent entities but maybe with some dorky code of laws they must obey. The mandalorian throws in droids that have machine like precision and just wipe the floor killing dozens of people in a firefight, taking no cover, and missing no shots, 360 no scope dual wielding. It broke a lot of unspoken rules about how the world worked.
- akiselev 5y ago
  > The mandalorian throws in droids that have machine like precision and just wipe the floor killing dozens of people in a firefight, taking no cover, and missing no shots, 360 no scope dual wielding. It broke a lot of unspoken rules about how the world worked. The first IG assassin droid appeared in Empire Strikes Back the movie and was a boss on the train level of the N64 game. In canon, most of the IG series are unique one offs so they're not exactly mass produced droids found all over the galaxy like maintenance drones (with the exception of the IG-86?). They're very high value items that get reprogrammed and passed from organization to organization.

Terry_Roll 5y ago

They have come a long way since the AI mine was invented!

devoutsalsa 5y ago

I wonder if we can just build some relatively cheap drones with video game AI on hardcore level and unleash swarms of them over enemy airspace.

Seattle3503 5y ago

One interesting implication of AI warfare is an increase in the tempo of war. Decisions won't happen on human timescales, but some of war and combat is making ethical judgments in the heat of the moment. We will need to make war AI that can evaluate moral dilemmas. Alternatively we will neglect to program for ethics, and the consequences will be unpleasant.

oneoff786 5y ago
Unlikely in any sort of near term. AI isn’t going to be making strategic decisions for the poorly defined word that is reality. It’s not like StarCraft where you can reduce things to a math problem. There’s all sorts of unique contextual knowledge that makes it impossible for a simple model to understand.

VectorLock 5y ago

Lots of hypotheticals about the capabilities of missiles vs. jets and recently I found this YouTube page thats new that has videos of setting up simulations in Command: Modern Operations with surprisingly accurate (to my untrained eye) simulations for something you can get on Steam. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJXWJ-Px5tU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJXWJ-Px5tU

AlexanderTheGr8 5y ago

I am surprised to not see any mention of the book - "Army of None", which is about autonomous weaponry. A review by Bill Gates: https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Army-of-None https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Army-of-None

foxyv 5y ago

The best AI dog fighter in existence is an Aim-9X sidewinder. Short range air to air missiles with helmet cuing systems have gotten to the point it's essentially a see to kill environment. Thrust vectoring, 3D IR mapping, countermeasure rejection, optics, laser fusing. Weapon engagement zones are sometimes measured less than the warhead's effective radius. Absolute insanity. However, there are some serious advantages to having an AI autopilot for dog-fights. Stuff like failover for G-lock (pilot loses consciousness during maneuver) and jinking to avoid shots makes a great deal of sense. Dogfight assist for gunnery would also be pretty sweet. Something similar to the gun PAC on a warthog maybe where you hold secondary trigger and instead of stabilizing the jet it gets the nose on the lead target indicator. Another case is when drone fighters are intentionally sent out clean (no missiles) to avoid an incident and enter a merge unexpectedly. Also there could be cases where large numbers of cheap junk fighters are sent against small numbers of expensive fighter drones. Not enough missiles for 5-1 ratios, but guns for the 5th jet may make the difference.