Implications of A.I. to the Fighter Pilot and Modern Combat

Recently a new artificial intelligence system, dubbed ALPHA, was developed using fuzzy logic algorithms that allowed this system to evade and defeat a veteran combat fighter pilot/instructor every time they faced each other in simulated engagements. This A.I. was developed by a doctor at the University of Cincinnati for the AFRL with the hopes of eventual use in future UCAV's.

...the A.I. successfully evaded retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Gene "Geno" Lee, and shot him down every time. Lee called it "the most aggressive, responsive, dynamic and credible A.I. I've seen to date." And "Geno" is no slouch. He's a former Air Force Battle Manager and adversary tactics instructor. He's controlled or flown in thousands of air-to-air intercepts as mission commander or pilot. In short, the guy knows what he's doing. Plus he's been fighting A.I. opponents in flight simulators for decades.

Breakthroughs in genetic fuzzy systems, most notably the development of the Genetic Fuzzy Tree methodology, have allowed fuzzy logic based Artificial Intelligences to be developed that can be applied to incredibly complex problems. The ability to have extreme performance and computational efficiency as well as to be robust to uncertainties and randomness, adaptable to changing scenarios, verified and validated to follow safety specifications and operating doctrines via formal methods, and easily designed and implemented are just some of the strengths that this type of control brings. Within this white paper, the authors introduce ALPHA, an Artificial Intelligence that controls flights of Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles in aerial combat missions within an extreme-fidelity simulation environment. To this day, this represents the most complex application of a fuzzy-logic based Artificial Intelligence to an Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle control problem. While development is on-going, the version of ALPHA presented within was assessed by Colonel (retired)Gene Lee who described ALPHA as “the most aggressive, responsive, dynamic and credible AI (he’s) seen-to-date.” The quality of these preliminary results in a problem that is not only complex and rife with uncertainties but also contains an intelligent and unrestricted hostile force has significant implications for this type of Artificial Intelligence. This work adds immensely to the body of evidence that this methodology is an ideal solution to a very wide array of problems.

I can see a day in the not too distant future where a flight of F-35's, lead ship piloted by a human and trained to be a battle manager, designates air to air targets, and tasks the other F-35's in the flight, being flown by an ALPHA derivative A.I., to defeat the other air threats. The thought of this from an adversary fighter pilot's point of view has to be daunting to say the least.



Short Pop. Sci. Article

Long full .pdf read.

Be a crying shame if they don't hire BASSPLYR to give that puppy some personality.

That's coming,no doubt,as long as a human is in charge and can override the AI it`s a great idea.Let`s just be sure the AI is never autonomous,don`t want a Terminator event

Bring on the cylons! and the dream of democracy in the middle east, in the form of the worlds largest Disney land, may finally be realized.

Military AI, in progress. Benign, benevolent AI, not so much.

They already got autonomous kill bots overhead some countries all the time.

They can take off and land on their own, select targets, and destroy whomever their human overlords tell them to. Plus they got a 'self' destruct switch. All dangerous machines have one of those.

So who's the intelligent ones here?

That scares me ... the thought of military AI, working autonomously in the air. Sounds too much like 'Skynet' from the Terminator movies. I hope the tech/software does not get corrupted....

I know this is just AI for training now, but you cannot reassure me it won't be 'set loose' if it is really that good.

Yeah,what kind of reckless idiots would set something like Skynet loose on the world....crap,leftwing socialists,right wing facists,elite globalists-we are #ed!!

This AI is nothing like skynet. The computers have no free thought or self awareness. They calculate based on the information available and react to achieve the goal they are programed to do.

I'm now reading into the document but I wondered why the article hypes up "fuzzy logic tree" when it has been used for years. Although, I find the work impressive.

a reply to: Bluntone22
Just like everyone. ;-)

Imagine someone noticing an electrical fire and yelling "Fire!"

...

And then the A.I. opens up and launches a barrage of missiles.

a reply to: SlowNail

"Dude, HUD please"! LOL.

So if they already have an AI that can fly itself back to base after receiving damage to the craft... wouldn't that mean human pilots are an endangered species?

Does that mean full-sized fighter drones?

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

I think "fighter pilots" will be sort of a thing of the past. I think a human will always be near or in the fray and act as a battle manager telling the UCAV's where and who to kill. So say a flight of 4 jets, that would normally be piloted by 4 pilots. Now take three of those pilots and replace them with A.I. waiting for orders from the lead jet that still has the human pilot. Now only one pilot is in harms way so in essence you could say that the fighter pilot will be an endangered species since there won't be as many in the fight as before.
But don't worry, those fighter jokes can get jobs as UAS drivers.

a reply to: Sammamishman

So...

It'll be like a real-life Starcraft game? Highlight and assign units to attack certain things, and assign certain units to use certain weapons and whatnot?

a reply to: MystikMushroom

It'll be like mini AWAC's running around. With the larger airliner based AWACS able to stay farther away from the danger zone than before.

originally posted by: intrptr
Military AI, in progress. Benign, benevolent AI, not so much.

They already got autonomous kill bots overhead some countries all the time.

They can take off and land on their own, select targets, and destroy whomever their human overlords tell them to. Plus they got a 'self' destruct switch. All dangerous machines have one of those.

So who's the intelligent ones here?

Then they're not autonomous, are they.

a reply to: Cohen the Barbarian

Whats left, the human decision to release weapons is about it.

(Never watched Robocop)
In that case the hybrid of robot and human brain wasn't able to arrest their overlords. But freely shot and killed droves of 'criminals'. Soldiers fulfill that role today, too.

This is becoming real life. Expect False flag attacks by US military Jets.

a reply to: Sammamishman

By considering only the most relevant variables, it can make complex decisions with extreme speed. As a result, the A.I. can calculate the best maneuvers in a complex, dynamic environment, over 250 times faster than its human opponent can blink.

(Popular science article)

And I think Geno was referring to the fact that after doing a combat mission he gets tired whereas the AI will not feel that physical fatigue.

How is that for a wing man? "I feel the need! The need to blink" 250 decisions later...

What would really be handy is having a version that kicks in if a pilot loses consciousness due to g-forces or a medical condition,That would be good for all aircraft,not just fighters.