Artificial Intelligence will be central to US Sixth Generation Fighter

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: MarkMyWords

It's not AI in the way people freak out over.

So they're finally going to field that in the open now? It's about time, the demos were amazing.

Yeah, I'm not too keen on weapons that fire themselves at their own AI will. No matter how advanced our weapons systems become there should always, with every attack, be a person who fires the weapon.


a reply to: PrivilegedPeasant

a reply to: Bedlam

That's what I've heard. I agree it's about time.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: noeltrotsky

Optionally manned is a fancy way of saying manned that appeases the UAV champions. They won't even start testing air to air unmanned platforms until after 2020, after the F-X/F/A-XX have begun development.

To his point, optionally manned platforms would be limited by the pilot when occupied by one, otherwise they would be able to perform maneuvers that would otherwise kill a pilot correct?

a reply to: DaMac

They can fly as either manned "normal" aircraft, or unmanned, which would increase endurance as well as enable extremely high G maneuvering, yes.

originally posted by: infinityorder
Lol...that sounds about right.

Modern comps already outhink people.

Next gen, like say quantum comps....could outhink many people.

Take it from someone who programs computers. Computers do not out think people. They can do certain things faster than people like perform mathematical operations and consolidate data but they are very bad at doing actual thinking based on the output of their tasks.

originally posted by: noeltrotsky
6th Gen Fighters are going to be pilotless. Basically super advanced drones. This allows the plane to conduct manuevers that would kill a human with G force. In reality the plane will be so different in capabilities from a current fighter they will hardly be comparable.

The problem is this even faster speed and mobility will make the human at the joystick in shipping container wherever much too slow to manage everything. Thus the 'AI', which isn't really full on AI, it's more automated responses to sensor input. Like a fighter identifying a missile threat and deploying countermeasures without any human instruction. Or making an enemy fighter contact, identifying the contact and performing a routine of maneuvers to gain a firing position without any human input.

Interesting about the self healing aspect. I really haven't heard much about it.

This seems like far too fragile a system. Sure, we're probably going to have fighter drones but I can't imagine that ever being the main component of an air force. There are signal delays between the aircraft and the pilot, as well as the possibility of jamming the frequency, which stops your drones from working. Add in that any AI will have flaws that humans can exploit and you end up at the conclusion that a manned aircraft is a necessity.

a reply to: Aazadan

I suspect it will be more of "pilot assistance", advanced signal processing and sensor fusion, and prioritization algorithms that may be trained neural networks (say by using pilot instructors in simulators to give desired responses) instead of fixed rule-based algorithms.