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An AI-controlled Fighter Jet Took the Air Force Commander on a Historic Ride
AI-controlled F-16, piloted by Air Force Secretary, Frank Kendall, engages in historic dogfight, signaling future of unmanned warplanes. Air Force plans deployment of 1,000+ AI-enabled unmanned warplanes by 2028 despite concerns about AI autonomy. Transition driven by security, cost, and need to outpace adversaries like China; rapid technological advancement crucial.
AI is one of the most significant improvements in military aviation since the advent of stealth in the early 1990s, and the Air Force has avidly pursued it. Even though the technology is not yet completely matured, the service intends to deploy an AI-enabled fleet of over 1,000 unmanned warplanes, the first of which will be operational by 2028.
It was fitting that the dogfight took place at Edwards Air Force Base, a massive desert complex where Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier and the military has developed its most secret aeronautical technologies. Inside classified simulators and buildings with layers of surveillance protection, a new breed of test pilots is teaching AI bots to fly in combat. Kendall came here to witness AI fly in real time and express public confidence in its future role in air warfare.
"It’s a security risk not to have it. At this point, we have to have it," Kendall said. The Associated Press and NBC were allowed permission to see the secret flight on the condition that it not be disclosed until it was completed due to operational security concerns.
Kendall was flown in lightning-fast manoeuvres at almost 550 miles per hour by the AI-controlled F-16, Vista, which exerted five times the force of gravity on his body. It nearly collided with a second human-piloted F-16 as the two aircraft raced within 1,000 feet of one other, turning and looping to drive their opponent into vulnerable positions.
Kendall grinned as he climbed out of the cockpit at the end of the hourlong flight. He stated that he had observed enough throughout his flight to trust this still-learning AI with the decision to deploy weapons in battle.
That proposition is met with strong hostility. Arms control specialists and humanitarian groups are profoundly afraid that AI will one day be able to drop bombs that kill people without human intervention, and they are calling for tighter controls on its usage.
"There are widespread and serious concerns about ceding life-and-death decisions to sensors and software," the International Committee of the Red Cross has cautioned. Self-propelled weapons "are an immediate cause of concern and demand an urgent, international political response."
Kendall stated that there will always be human monitoring in the system when weapons are employed. The military's transition to AI-powered aircraft is motivated by security, cost, and strategic capability. If the United States and China engage in battle, today's Air Force fleet of pricey, manned fighters will be vulnerable due to advances on both sides in electronic warfare, space, and air defence systems. China's air force is on track to outnumber the United States, and it is also developing a fleet of flying unmanned weapons.
Future war scenarios involve swarms of American unmanned aircraft providing an advance attack on enemy defences, allowing the US to infiltrate airspace without putting pilot lives at risk. However, money plays a role in the transition. The Air Force is still dealing with production delays and cost overruns on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which is expected to cost $1.7 trillion.
Kendall believes that smaller, cheaper AI-controlled unmanned jets are the way forward. Vista's military operators claim that no other country in the world has an AI jet like it, in which the software first learns from millions of data points in a simulator before testing its conclusions during actual flights. The real-world performance data is then fed back into the simulator, where the AI processes it to learn further.
China has AI, but there's no evidence that it's developed a mechanism to conduct experiments outside of a simulator. According to Vista's test pilots, some lessons can only be taught in the air, much like a junior officer learning tactics for the first time.
Until you fly, "it's all guesswork," according to chief test pilot Bill Grey. "And the longer it takes you to figure that out, the longer it takes before you have useful systems."
Vista conducted its first AI-controlled battle in September 2023, and there have been only approximately two dozen subsequent flights. However, the programmes are learning so swiftly with each battle that certain AI versions being tested on Vista are already outperforming human pilots in air-to-air combat.
The pilots at this base are aware that, in some ways, they are training their replacements or defining a future structure in which fewer of them are required.
However, they also state that they would not want to be in the skies against an adversary with AI-controlled aircraft if the United States did not have its own fleet. “We have to keep running. And we have to run fast,” Kendall said.
AI-controlled F-16, piloted by Air Force Secretary Kendall, engages in historic dogfight, signaling future of unmanned warplanes.
Air Force plans deployment of 1,000+ AI-enabled unmanned warplanes by 2028 despite concerns about AI autonomy.
Transition driven by security, cost, and need to outpace adversaries like China; rapid technological advancement crucial.
Source: AP NEWS