
Navy F/A-18 squadron commander's take on AI repeatedly beating real pilot - tomohawk
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/35947/navy-f-a-18-squadron-commanders-take-on-ai-repeatedly-beating-real-pilot-in-dogfight
======
poof131
Too funny, I went through flight school with Colin. Great guy and glad to see
he picked up command but disagree with him on the benefits of BFM and the true
value of manned fighter jets over the coming decades. The US military is
caught between two wars. One, against opponents who can’t really hit back
where fighter jets are overkill. Better off with AC-130s and the like. The
other against opponents who can hit back, where the battle will be won or lost
in space, cyber, economically, and possibly through nuclear warfare. Even with
regards to fighters, the amount of money spent on BFM is really a boondoggle.
It’s like spending billions training the infantry to knife fight. It’s not
Vietnam and the last gunfighter with regards to missiles and targeting. Is not
the AIM-9X targeting AI itself?

A great book that rings more true than ever talks about the obsolescence of
weapons systems. I believe it was Freedman[1] A key thesis is that as a
predominant weapon system becomes more vulnerable, it becomes more expensive,
as it’s burdened with more defensive measures to survive from cheaper more
expendable systems. In World War 2 the canonical example was the battle ship
and the aircraft. Now it’s the fighter jet and the missile (or drone) etc.
Just look at the ridiculous state of the JSF.

Manned missile trucks are valuable for countering electronic attack, but not
dogfighting. Still, practice dogfighting is one of the most fun things you can
do, too bad it hasn’t really been applicable since Vietnam. This post from the
other day reminded me how fun it is and seems like a great fit for VR.[2]
Onward last Samurais! Just try not to spend all the taxpayers money on the way
out.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Future-War-History-Lawrence-
Freedman-...](https://www.amazon.com/Future-War-History-Lawrence-Freedman-
ebook/dp/B01JZ2QLFQ/) [2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24255191](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24255191)

~~~
errantspark
I've been clocking in 10+ hours/wk dogfighting in VR with a decent HOTAS setup
since quarantine. You're absolutely right about how fun it is. No other VR
experience has been such a consistent draw for me. It's just an excellent
place between a fast paced shooter and a strategy game. I love thinking about
relative energy and the capabilities of the enemy plane and how they match up
with mine in order to come up with an engagement strategy. I also love the
tension as you identify a target and you're both trying to come into the
engagement from a favorable position. It reminds me of match sprints in track
cycling. Very much recommend it.

~~~
Sohcahtoa82
Do you do anything to deal with the motion sickness, or did you just never
experience it?

I can play games where real-world motion matches in-game motion (Beat Saber,
PokerStars VR, Superhot VR, Zombie Training Simulator, Space Pirate Trainer,
etc.), but any sort of driving or flying makes me sick. Even games that make
me use the controller to walk long distances make me dizzy and nauseous.

~~~
errantspark
I love flying. For the first three weeks or so of consistently playing I would
get pretty motion sick after about 30 minutes of playtime and near throwing up
after 45. That's usually when I would stop and then I'd spend another half
hour or so walking around the neighborhood to give me something to concentrate
on other than the awful nausea.

Then one day I was flying, and then I was flying and then I was still flying 4
hours later with no sickness. It hasn't come back since.

------
hpoe
Saw an interesting video on the military channel a couple of years back that
pointed out something important about these super powerful, super fast, super
expensive aircraft.

You'd be better off from a cost perspective running a swarm of hundreds of
drone strapped with explosives, only one of them needs to get lucky to disable
a multi-million dollar plane and the drones themselves can be pretty cheap.

~~~
spideymans
By the same principle, a small and inexperienced navy can effectively harass
and perhaps even the defeat the US navy with a swarm of small boats

[https://gcaptain.com/can-u-s-navy-defeat-swarm-
attacks/](https://gcaptain.com/can-u-s-navy-defeat-swarm-attacks/)

~~~
ceejayoz
I wouldn't be shocked if the Navy's eventual counter tactic to that is a bunch
of drones on every ship.

~~~
nostrademons
In the limit, we get rid of navies and stick swarms of drones in 40-ft
shipping containers, and then just sail container ships with 10K+ drones
aboard around.

~~~
nradov
And where are the sensors?

~~~
nostrademons
Presumably on slow high-flying drones (think like a U-2) or on a balloon. For
drones that go under 30 mph you can actually solar-power them, letting them
stay aloft indefinitely.

I'd expect to see a shift toward more visual and IR sensors as well, to combat
stealth technologies. Modern ultra-HD cameras + image recognition algorithms
are a lot more sensitive than human eyes are, and you can field many more
drones than AWACS aircraft with much less cost of a loss, letting you bring
the relevant detection platforms in closer.

~~~
nradov
Visual and IR sensors don't work well in bad weather. Modern cameras have
superior resolution to human eyes but dynamic range is still worse. Solar
powered drones don't have the power or payload to handle useful radars. For
that mission you need something like an RQ-4, which is roughly equivalent to a
U-2 in performance and just as expensive.

------
cgrealy
>>the argument about the death of the dogfight, or that there is no need for
within visual range engagements anymore is a tired one. There was a pretty
popular movie in the ‘80s about that very argument, so I am not going to
rehash it here.

Regardless of the actual merits of whether dogfights are a thing any more, I
feel like "because Top Gun" is not exactly a sound argument.

~~~
fountainofage
What's interesting to me - I thought I was a pretty big fan of Top Gun, but
now I'm not so sure.

I did not pick up there is an argument about whether or not dog fighting still
was needed.

The only "argument" I recall was the recap of how pilot deaths increased after
training stopped, and decreased after training started. But it was a one off
history lesson as part of the Top Gun school intro.

But the rest or the movie seemed very clearly - yes, the US needs dog fighting
to defend its interests across the globe. There seemed to be absolutely no
challenging of that idea within Top Gun.

~~~
chrisco255
That was an 80s movie. An all out war with Russia was still a possibility
then.

~~~
082349872349872
Over the past few years, I've been hoping to run into an 80s soviet movie with
heavily armed evil american antagonists. The soviet ideological indoctrination
and censorship game must've been strong, because so far everything I've seen
either has pirates/hooligans/etc. as antagonists or fails to even have a "man
vs. man" plot at all.

~~~
IgorPartola
I grew up in post Soviet Ukraine, watching all the movies that were made in
the USSR. I cannot recall a single “us vs them” movie with another country or
nationality being the them, except movies about WWII. I don’t know why that
is, but when we started getting American movies in the early 1990s it was a
huge contrast. In Soviet movies the good guys were often the police trying to
combat recidivism after WWII (huge socioeconomic shift led to a huge
socioeconomic problem that gave rise to a huge amount of crime). In the
American movies the bad guys were often foreigners.

This isn’t to say there wasn’t propaganda, just that the propaganda was
pointed in a different direction: for example a young idealistic police
officer working with an veteran of the force to tenaciously investigate an
elusive criminal gang for the glory of the Soviet Union. The focus was to make
Soviet patriotism an attractive quality, regardless of being young or old. It
was a lot more focused internally. In the meantime, a movie like Die Hard has
none of that: German thieves that pretend to be terrorists are the bad guys,
an all American hero is a good guy. American movies rarely have a true
patriotic streak, as in “and this, son, is why we must work to better our
union.” In fact, the idea of glorifying labor was so prevalent in the Soviet
movies and so absent in American ones that this might be the biggest contrast.
It shows a different face of patriotism and could easily explain the divide:
some think patriotism is exercising your rights while others see it as holding
back on exercising your rights. “It’s my right not to wear a mask” is a clear
example of that.

~~~
CapricornNoble
>>>This isn’t to say there wasn’t propaganda, just that the propaganda was
pointed in a different direction: for example a young idealistic police
officer working with an veteran of the force to tenaciously investigate an
elusive criminal gang for the glory of the Soviet Union.

Interesting, the closest Western execution of this Soviet theme, albeit much
more cynically, might be "Child 44", which was banned in much of the FSU and
bombed:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_44_(film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_44_\(film\))

Personally I enjoyed it.

>>>American movies rarely have a true patriotic streak, as in “and this, son,
is why we must work to better our union.”

"The Siege" might be one of the best for sticking to American values and
trying to curb xenophobia. A big part of the plot is the importance of holding
other Americans accountable for violations of our laws and our values, even
when fighting against "foreign" enemies.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Siege](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Siege)

------
credit_guy
Drones can be, and have been jammed, or even captured [1]. You need now, and
will continue to need for the foreseeable future pilots in planes. But teams
of piloted fighters and drones? That will be the winning combination. And how
can a single human command a flock of 20 aircraft? By giving short orders, and
letting AI taking care of the rest. The ethics of killing will never be left
to AI, but the technicalities of acquiring and prosecuting the target? You
bet.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93U.S._RQ-170_incid...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93U.S._RQ-170_incident)

~~~
lurquer
> The ethics of killing will never be left to AI,

Ha. I know of a device with a very simple AI program that can tell if an enemy
is standing on it. If so, the enemy is killed. It’s called a mine. They have
been used in every land (and naval) war since they were invented.

~~~
ekianjo
I don't think mines quality as "AI", unless you stretch the definition to just
mean anything under the sun.

~~~
conception
I think they just meant that the military long left the “kill/don’t kill”
decision along the wayside despite the propaganda of saying we have someone in
control of the kill vector.

~~~
ekianjo
The whole discussion was about AI as far as I can recall.

~~~
Dylan16807
Mines are being compared as something that makes worse decisions but gets put
in charge anyway.

------
babesh
The US military already has drones that are flown remotely. It seems to be a
small step to add a dogfighting AI to a plane and just have the remote pilot
sic the AI at another plane. The remote pilot just has to reengage after the
fighting is over. That’s assuming that they can add the sensors and AI to
track the other plane.

As the author mentioned, the dogfighting AI seems to counter the real pilot’s
moves effectively while maximizing the amount of energy maintained. It seems
to have caused the real pilot to overshoot or undershoot while maintaining or
gaining energy. The countering also included adjusting aim to hit the real
pilot as the real pilot tried to maneuver away. It wasn’t just perfect
information or efficient flying.

~~~
2rsf
Current drones are slow speed, slow maneuverability vehicles. I suppose you
can make a drone fighter, but that does not exist yet.

~~~
babesh
The US air force had drone f-16s and used them to test missiles (they shot the
missiles at them).

[https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a29847417...](https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a29847417/f-16-drone/)

[https://www.boeing.com/defense/support/qf-16/index.page](https://www.boeing.com/defense/support/qf-16/index.page)

~~~
2rsf
> it was noted that with a little extra work the QF-16 could be turned into a
> combat UAV for dangerous missions like SEAD (suppression of enemy defenses)
> or attacking ground targets guarded by heavy air defenses.

[https://www.uasvision.com/2014/06/05/target-qf16-could-
becom...](https://www.uasvision.com/2014/06/05/target-qf16-could-become-
mq-16-lawn-dart/)

------
RandyRanderson
Three huge issues with this test:

1\. The AI had "total situational awareness" (perfect position, direction,
velocity of opponent). Even given 360 cameras, radar, etc there is still
uncertainty, errors, etc.

2\. The human was an expert pilot, not a sim expert (see videos, he was going
way too fast several times, not something he'd do in a real plane). A DCS
master would likely have done better.

3\. The AI wasn't trying to avoid head-ons.

With this and the Starcraft2 blink micro "win" I'm just going to these from
now on.

~~~
e12e
> 3\. The AI wasn't trying to avoid head-ons.

Why should it? Presumably the AI pilot is backed up / remote / not precious -
while the human pilot has an inherent value - isn't reckless disregard one
benefit of automated systems?

~~~
RandyRanderson
You don't risk an expensive plane with head-ons - that's what missiles are
for.

This was testing the AI. If real-world AI was going to be deployed in warfare
shooting down manned planes, you'd make custom hardware that is smaller,
faster and 10-100x cheaper than a f-35.

------
melling
I hope this impresses the military enough that they carve out several billion
more for AI research. The US spends so much on the military.

For some reason, we can’t justify more on civilian research but the military
easily can, if it embraces it as part of its future.

~~~
irrational
Yes, nothing could possibly go wrong with having a military minded AI.

~~~
dogma1138
It’s not minded, it’s not any different in than alphago or alphastar or the
OpenAI dota bots, it doesn’t understand anything outside of the context of the
game it’s playing. It doesn’t have a mind. On the “intelligence” spectrum it’s
much closer to the guidance system in a heat seeking missile to than say even
a dog, yet alone anything that we would define as having cognition.

~~~
irrational
Well, OP was talking about billions of dollars of DARPA funding going towards
military AI research. I presume they would be trying to get much closer to
cognition.

~~~
dogma1138
Why would you want cognition? Besides the billions of edge cases it may create
why would you want to make a tool you can or would have to reason with?

~~~
inetknght
> _why would you want to make a tool you can or would have to reason with?_

Some might ask the same question in the context of human children.

------
ryanmarsh
The reason you're seeing this story is not because the Pentagon felt like you
would enjoy some candor on a whiz-bang AI thing. No, they're way out in front
of this issue. This is part of a prolonged PR campaign to prepare the public
for reducing or eliminating human-in-the-loop limitations. A wet dream for
systems guys since they were children reading sci-fi.

The Pentagon has been using robots to kill robots and other humans since
before 9/11\. This story has a long arc. We meat bags are the major limitation
for machines of war and that limitation will be engineered out.

------
GhostVII
Is there value in having a pilot, just to increase the consequences of
shooting down a plane? When Iran shot down a US drone, there was pretty much
no real response by the US. If it was a manned plane, there would almost
certainly be at least retaliatory strikes, so Iran (and other countries) are
going to be much less likely to shoot down a manned F-18 than an unmanned one.
So maybe having manned fighters is valuable just to increase the barrier to
engagement.

And regardless, is there even value in having autonomous fighter jets when we
already have advanced missiles? It doesn't matter how good the pilot/AI is if
they are just firing missiles from miles away. We already have missiles that
can loiter for hours before choosing a target and attacking it (ex. IAI Harpy)
- to me that is much more valuable and dangerous than an AI fighter.

Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War is a good book to read
about it.

~~~
deep_etcetera
It would be more efficient to use drones but precommit to shooting a soldier
back in the US whenever a drone gets shot down.

~~~
clarus
Morally not possible.

~~~
ars
Maybe watch this:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Taste_of_Armageddon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Taste_of_Armageddon)

------
tomohawk
> The fact that in the contest, the AI had perfect information at all times,
> and rules of engagement were not a factor, are not inconsequential details.
> I recognize that providing the amount of data and sensor fusion the AI would
> require to perform at the same level in a real aerial engagement (one that
> does not take place in cyberspace) is not a small undertaking and still a
> bit in the future. The rules of engagement discussion could fill up the
> syllabus for the entire semester of an ethics class, and will always be a
> touchy subject with regards to AI's involvement in war.

This is probably the important bit, and the bit that most needs a human in the
loop. Once the decision is made, engage the AI and let it do its thing.

Of course, if some regime out there didn't care at all about ROE or human life
or killing the wrong people, they could build a bunch of killing machines to
take out anything that moves. It would be more efficient.

~~~
WrtCdEvrydy
I think this is how other species will eventually come upon our world... just
a whole bunch of machines fighting each other with the humans long gone.

~~~
DenisM
This book relevant to your interests:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invincible](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invincible)

------
chillacy
> Hell, I am only a voting member as far as the flight controls are concerned
> in the Super Hornet anyways. If I put a control input in that is not
> aerodynamically sound (i.e. could result in a departure from controlled
> flight), the flight control system will not move the control surface or will
> move a different surface to give me the movement I am requesting. Who is
> flying who?

That's a good take on the matter. Computer systems are already a big part of
the aircraft, in the near term this could result in some pretty wicked copilot
software.

~~~
082349872349872
Now that AI assist is being openly discussed in the wider anglophone press, I
wonder if we'll see a diminution in "unsafe unprofessional" air intercepts?

(I don't know what the search terms would be in chinese[1], but "искусственный
интеллект су-35" gets plenty of older —at least by HN standards— hits.)

[1] [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-
china-28905504](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-28905504) suggests
china has bought while they learn to build. Someone who knows more chinese
than I might wish to try "人工智能 苏35".

------
moneytide1
I'm assuming combat aircraft are capable of delivering more G's than a human
body can handle, though pilots train to sustain brief bouts of high G for
quick maneuvering - is this limit factored into to the "AI player" handling?
Is it meant to simulate another human pilot or is it human versus the physical
limits of a machine?

~~~
chiph
If I were building an AI commanded aircraft I would have it use every G the
airframe could handle. No pilot means fewer maneuvering limitations and an
increased chance of victory.

An intermediate step could be an AI-assisted aircraft. It might be better at
setting up shots, and still work within the physical limitations of the human
inside.

Something not mentioned is an AI powered plane's ability to more-rapidly
change from positive to negative G's (not sure if this is technically called
jerk or not). A human has a really tough time making that transition.

~~~
inetknght
There was another discussion a couple months ago [0] which linked to an MIT
lecture on Youtube about the F-22 and its design. At 40 minutes in [1], he
describes a scenario with an F-15 where the pilot could rip the wings off of
the plane. He contrasts that the F-22's software was designed to make the most
use of control surfaces and limiters to prevent that.

[0]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23588760](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23588760)

[1]: [https://youtu.be/Evhrk5tY-Yo?t=2428](https://youtu.be/Evhrk5tY-
Yo?t=2428)

~~~
PhantomGremlin
But it's relatively easy to create an unmanned airframe that can maneuver at
+/\- 20g's. The pilot has been the limiting factor for quite some time.

An unmanned aircraft could laughably outmaneuver an F-22. The AI is the tricky
part.

------
kaiju0
I'm very curious of the gods eye factor of the video game environment vs the
real world sensor processing.

------
diskmuncher
The setup of the game is simply unfair for a comparison between AI and human.
If you want to keep the perfect data link between the simulator's outputs and
the AI player computer, then at least let the human play by watching the
(God's eye) display with the aircraft sprites sporting those kill-point spears
and ditch the HUD. The objective would simply be to touch the enemy aircraft
with that spear.

The HUD is cool and all. But how do I know where the enemy is if it is outside
of the HUD's field? Think about how the AI knew. :) And while we are at this,
maybe just invite a young gamer instead of a real pilot.

------
Ericson2314
Given how vastly different WWI and WII were from their predecessors, I don't
see planning for WWIII being a very useful exercise. The game theory is so
vastly open ended, and capabilities of belligerents so great it Bogles the
mind.

(Oh, and I fail to see how China wouldn't win. Heh.)

That just leaves "counter-insurgency" empire building crap which is super
inefficient at even the stated goals, and the stated goals are worthless.

Therefore I conclude the whole exercise is pointless and a waste of money.

------
warmcat
What is stopping from using existing remote pilot drone technology and using
it for dog fights and other missions that fighter pilots do?

~~~
lovegoblin
Latency.

~~~
jessriedel
Do you actually know that to be true? Speed-of-light delays would be important
for pilots based in Montana flying in Iraq, but not if the remote pilot is in
the theatre. And if it's not speed of light, it's a solvable problem.

------
subsubzero
Whats really incredible is the AI company behind these wargames(Heron Systems)
only has 25 employees[1]. Which to me seems very small considering the
engineering behind making this successful.

[1] - [https://www.sbir.gov/sbc/heron-systems-
incorporated](https://www.sbir.gov/sbc/heron-systems-incorporated)

------
xvilka
To remove the need of pilot completely a lot of still have to be done - making
the same AI capable of the full cycle - from taking off to engagement, from
the engagement to landing. Combining all these in the same software is harder
than making them work independently. Maybe it will be just a few separate AIs.
Then the interconnect problem arises.

------
99chrisbard
My kind of AI drone~
[https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a29847417...](https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a29847417/f-16-drone/)

------
ilaksh
Its so strange that people are not making the connection between this and
killer robots.

~~~
ed25519FUUU
I’m sure China and Russia are making that connection with gusto. Should we?

~~~
ilaksh
I mean to say that those systems are in fact killer robots already.

There is nothing special about China and Russia having similar systems.

The same military requirements apply everywhere.

And just because in the US it is not be popularized as "killer robots" does
not mean that it is not already that.

Its kind of silly that some people think that the US military has some type of
military moral high ground in this case or any. Or that by not explicitly
saying "killer robots" that means it is not so.

------
aurizon
The classic dogfight can only persist in the hearts and minds of old pilots. A
modern state of the art unpiloted fighter, with no human pilot or the burden
of life support, and G limitations will be lighter with the same engines,
capable of 30-50+ G maneuvers(for which is has been specially designed), with
modern long range standoff weapons and suitable radars, will slaughter any
human if faces. The high G ability will leave any standoff missiles fired
against it in the dust by active evasion. It will be vulnerable to high grade
stealthed missiles. as well as hard ballistic stealthed rounds shot from afar
- unless it detects and evades. In fact, any modern robot craft will perform
high G random jinks to make path prediction difficult. The soone the USA
realizes this, the better. You can be sure Russia/China have learned this
lesson.

~~~
2OEH8eoCRo0
I've said the exact same thing in other threads. You can do fakeouts a human
can't possibly do like corkscrew at 500rpm and pull 50gs randomly and
repeatedly when a radar is trying to predict your path.

If the engineers in charge of designing these crafts around an AI pilot think
outside the box we could see some pretty wild tech.

~~~
thunderbird120
500 RPM corkscrews and 50Gs are firmly in "missile only" territory due to the
limits of material sciences. The square cube law is a harsh mistress and
engineering is a game of trade-offs. If you want to design a re-usable
platform it's typically better to concentrate on other things like sensors,
stealth, speed, networking, and payload which could allow you to get a shot
off from outside of the enemy's range or before they are even aware of your
presence. It would be interesting to see the inevitable version of this
contest for BVR combat but I suspect that's going to end up being classified
territory given that it's much more relevant to actual modern combat. AI
systems will certainly play a huge role in future fighters but it will
probably be more in terms of perfect coordination and execution of long range
aerial combat rather than something like dogfighting.

~~~
clnhlzmn
> "missile only" territory

I wonder why we're even talking about planes any more. Missiles to kill the
planes and missiles to attack the ground. No pilots, no problems. Right?

~~~
dragontamer
Because we need a human up there, flying around, controlling the missiles.
Moving the human closer to the battlefield for a more up-to-date viewpoint is
quite important.

~~~
clnhlzmn
I was thinking it's because Air Force leadership are all pilots.

> Because we need a human up there, flying around, controlling the missiles

Do we? Why is this important. I thought everything could be done remotely
these days.

~~~
dragontamer
> I thought everything could be done remotely these days.

Jamming is an issue for one. Latency for another.

------
uberdru
The real question is whether you want a society without pilots.

~~~
valuearb
Flight Attendants say: NO!

------
catmistake
The US and NATO has inexpensive anti-drone technology.

[https://www.npr.org/2020/08/17/903152237/bald-eagle-in-
michi...](https://www.npr.org/2020/08/17/903152237/bald-eagle-in-michigan-
destroys-wildlife-mapping-drone)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAYVyj6vf3Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAYVyj6vf3Y)

~~~
saithound
Unmanned combat air vehicles tend to have net weights in the 30kg-2000kg
range. The F/A-18 is closer to 15000kg. We'd need gryphons.

------
greentimer
For all we know this kind of AI is much more advanced than we think, even up
to AGI. All that needs to be true is that the AI has brain implanted us to
make it look like nothing is happening.

------
antonvs
They don't select fighter pilots for their writing or reasoning skills, and it
shows in this article. There doesn't appear to be anything worth paying
attention to here.

------
29athrowaway
Dogfights are a mostly extinct scenario.

------
aurizon
This shows how the old experienced people can fall into the trap of over-
rating the 'hands-on' human experience. In fact a human will have no chance at
all against an AI operated fighter designed as a high-G fighter. We saw how
the video AI was able to win with the ability of the AI fighter limited to the
human driven planes ability. What do you think will happen when the AI has
30-50 G turn capability. This is why modern missiles have guaranteed kill
zones - they have 30-50G turn capability. Modern jamming is running out of
room gradually as tech advances, so missiles can still be jammed for quite a
while as that arms race evolves.

~~~
tempestn
Which of your points do you feel the article writer was disagreeing with?

~~~
aurizon
Well, this was set up as a fight with equal resources. The same plane, flown
by AI/Human. In a real case you want to set up 'win'scenarios = sure kills.
The AI was able to dominate. He seemed to think that a real human in a real
plane against the same plane with AI, would draw upon human resources to feel
G at 600 knots etc and exceed the ability of the AI to draw on those resources
- being an unfeeling machine. In fact, once stripped down AI fighting
platforms get made, they will dominate. It will take a design cycle to remove
the human life support weight and to remove the cockpit etc,so it can be a
30-50G missile platform - that is what it will be. AI attacked versus AI
ground defence missiles with similar AI counter fighters. One can postulate a
similar AI blizzard of radar/radio/optical jamming by both sides that will
see-saw back and forth as tech develops. We fancy ourselves and look down on
Russia, in fact Russia has a capable educational system. It was killed as the
USSR by bad economic policies = central planning = a dead horse nobody can
ride to victory. Now they are dragged down by the Oligarch tax = oligarchs
steal any good idea and company that another Russian creates take it over with
a faked shareholders and board meeting = they fill all roles, and drain cash
from it. There have been hundreds of these and they are slowly and wurely
killing Russia. Look at Putin, poisoning other politicians. /politics
off....;)

~~~
tempestn
> He seemed to think that a real human in a real plane against the same plane
> with AI, would draw upon human resources to feel G at 600 knots etc and
> exceed the ability of the AI to draw on those resources - being an unfeeling
> machine.

I don't think he's saying that at all. On the contrary, he's saying the
opposite, explaining the advantages an AI has in these areas. For example,

> Even proficient aviators have to use a percentage of their concentration
> (i.e. situation awareness) on not over-performing or under-performing the
> aircraft. AI could easily track this task and would most likely never bleed
> airspeed or altitude excessively, preserving vital potential and kinetic
> energy while also fine-tuning lift vector placement on the other aircraft to
> continue the fight if required.

