AI Slays Top F-16 Pilot in DARPA Dogfight
August 22, 2020 3:46 PM Subscribe
posted by glonous keming at 3:56 PM on August 22, 2020 [3 favorites]
I'm so glad we're training our machines to fight better than humans. That's exactly the Terminator future 2020 is begging for us to develop!
posted by hippybear at 3:58 PM on August 22, 2020 [14 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 3:58 PM on August 22, 2020 [14 favorites]
I'm so glad we're training our machines to fight better than humans.
The F-35 was always going to be the last human piloted fighter jet, the meat sack at the controls has been the weakest link in the chain for sometime.
So, more like the future ~2005 was begging us for develop.
posted by sideshow at 4:04 PM on August 22, 2020 [11 favorites]
The F-35 was always going to be the last human piloted fighter jet, the meat sack at the controls has been the weakest link in the chain for sometime.
So, more like the future ~2005 was begging us for develop.
posted by sideshow at 4:04 PM on August 22, 2020 [11 favorites]
“We are very reluctant — the fighter pilot community is very reluctant — towards any sort of change. There’s almost an institutional requirement to not accept change,” he aid. “When it comes to autonomy, this has been avoided almost like the plague.
A computer can react in a thousandth the time a human can and ignore g-forces that will squish a human like a grape in a hydraulic press. “Fighter pilot” as a field of human endeavour is already an anachronism, they just haven’t come to terms with it yet.
posted by mhoye at 4:19 PM on August 22, 2020 [15 favorites]
A computer can react in a thousandth the time a human can and ignore g-forces that will squish a human like a grape in a hydraulic press. “Fighter pilot” as a field of human endeavour is already an anachronism, they just haven’t come to terms with it yet.
posted by mhoye at 4:19 PM on August 22, 2020 [15 favorites]
Apparently AI is quite the Renaissance Algorithm.
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:27 PM on August 22, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:27 PM on August 22, 2020 [2 favorites]
https://acecombat.fandom.com/wiki/Aurora_(artificial_intelligence)
A movie with that story would be a cold drink in the desert what with the 20+ years of wall-to-wall Disney Wars / Comics Hero BS we've been getting instead.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 4:45 PM on August 22, 2020
A movie with that story would be a cold drink in the desert what with the 20+ years of wall-to-wall Disney Wars / Comics Hero BS we've been getting instead.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 4:45 PM on August 22, 2020
this has been avoided almost like the plague.
You mean most people in that role have been working hard to prevent it but some huge minority have been actively promoting it? Bc that's how USA deals with plague in my limited experience.
posted by SaltySalticid at 4:45 PM on August 22, 2020 [13 favorites]
You mean most people in that role have been working hard to prevent it but some huge minority have been actively promoting it? Bc that's how USA deals with plague in my limited experience.
posted by SaltySalticid at 4:45 PM on August 22, 2020 [13 favorites]
Heron, a small, female- and minority-owned company with offices in Maryland and Virginia, builds artificial intelligence agents, and is also a player in DARPA’s Gamebreaker effort to explore tactics for disrupting enemy strategies using real-world games as platforms.
Good to finally see some diversity among the death merchants of the military-industrial complex!
posted by Saxon Kane at 5:10 PM on August 22, 2020 [27 favorites]
Good to finally see some diversity among the death merchants of the military-industrial complex!
posted by Saxon Kane at 5:10 PM on August 22, 2020 [27 favorites]
Good to finally see some diversity among the death merchants of the military-industrial complex!
makes you proud to be american
posted by lalochezia at 5:34 PM on August 22, 2020 [17 favorites]
Future confrontations will last only minutes. Once air superiority is established all that is left to do is withdraw and relinquish whatever it was you were protecting. Then back to the drawing board...
posted by jim in austin at 5:50 PM on August 22, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by jim in austin at 5:50 PM on August 22, 2020 [1 favorite]
Pilots are the cavalry of this age. I just look at the dreadnoughts and Maxim guns of an earlier age and wonder when the symmetrical war with all this hardware is going to break out.
You know: Guns of August , The War That Ended Peace
It is a commonplace to ask if people with their enthusiasms for what seems like pre dystopia tech if they have not ever read science fiction. This kind of thing, with the weapons, makes me wonder if they ever read an history.
posted by Pembquist at 6:22 PM on August 22, 2020 [8 favorites]
You know: Guns of August , The War That Ended Peace
It is a commonplace to ask if people with their enthusiasms for what seems like pre dystopia tech if they have not ever read science fiction. This kind of thing, with the weapons, makes me wonder if they ever read an history.
posted by Pembquist at 6:22 PM on August 22, 2020 [8 favorites]
The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In any case, most actual fighting will be done by small robots, and as you go forth today remember your duty is clear: to build and maintain those robots.
posted by Saxon Kane at 6:40 PM on August 22, 2020 [33 favorites]
posted by Saxon Kane at 6:40 PM on August 22, 2020 [33 favorites]
Future confrontations will last only minutes.
Or forever, once authoritative ownership of semiautonomous weapons becomes something you can hack. Smart minefields, here we come.
posted by mhoye at 6:40 PM on August 22, 2020 [4 favorites]
Or forever, once authoritative ownership of semiautonomous weapons becomes something you can hack. Smart minefields, here we come.
posted by mhoye at 6:40 PM on August 22, 2020 [4 favorites]
Symmetrical war? Hope not. Any country that could field this stuff also has ICBMs.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 6:41 PM on August 22, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 6:41 PM on August 22, 2020 [2 favorites]
I found this to be an informative Twitter thread about this test.
posted by mstokes650 at 6:47 PM on August 22, 2020 [12 favorites]
posted by mstokes650 at 6:47 PM on August 22, 2020 [12 favorites]
Or forever, once authoritative ownership of semiautonomous weapons becomes something you can hack. Smart minefields, here we come.
I'm guessing you were joking about this, but it turns out that DARPA has already funded research in the past on self-healing minefields. Here's an excerpt:
I'm guessing you were joking about this, but it turns out that DARPA has already funded research in the past on self-healing minefields. Here's an excerpt:
The Self Healing Minefield (SHM) is comprised of a networked system of mobile anti-tank landmines. When the mines detect a breach, each calculates an appropriate response, and some fire small rockets to "hop" into the breach path, healing the breach.posted by jasonhong at 6:58 PM on August 22, 2020 [7 favorites]
slaved to their fighter jet.
Many software developers are trying to move away from terminology like 'master/slave' - coinidentally one alternative I've seen is 'captain/drone', which wouldn't even be metaphorical in this case.
I'll grant you that having a codebase with inclusive terminology still wouldn't make attack drone AI development clear my personal ethical bar, though.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 7:06 PM on August 22, 2020 [7 favorites]
Many software developers are trying to move away from terminology like 'master/slave' - coinidentally one alternative I've seen is 'captain/drone', which wouldn't even be metaphorical in this case.
I'll grant you that having a codebase with inclusive terminology still wouldn't make attack drone AI development clear my personal ethical bar, though.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 7:06 PM on August 22, 2020 [7 favorites]
I saw that Twitter thread earlier and one sentence really jumped out at me, "It's also against the rules in any normal dogfighting contest." when talking about how the F-16 AI would just choose to do kamikaze runs.
Now, is this an actual Geneva Conventions rule, or are these rules for scrimmaging/ gaming dogfights?
posted by porpoise at 7:13 PM on August 22, 2020
Now, is this an actual Geneva Conventions rule, or are these rules for scrimmaging/ gaming dogfights?
posted by porpoise at 7:13 PM on August 22, 2020
I'm guessing you were joking about this,
I’m as serious as a heart attack about this. Autonomous weapons with uncertain or compromised ownership are going to be landmines of the 21st century. Why bother building your own weapons platforms when software defined radio, buggy firmware and remote-root exploits means you can use someone else’s for a hundred-thousandth of the cost?
posted by mhoye at 7:20 PM on August 22, 2020 [18 favorites]
I’m as serious as a heart attack about this. Autonomous weapons with uncertain or compromised ownership are going to be landmines of the 21st century. Why bother building your own weapons platforms when software defined radio, buggy firmware and remote-root exploits means you can use someone else’s for a hundred-thousandth of the cost?
posted by mhoye at 7:20 PM on August 22, 2020 [18 favorites]
Now, is this an actual Geneva Conventions rule, or are these rules for scrimmaging/ gaming dogfights?
Doing a nose-nose guns engagement at the merge is widely seen as suicide because assuming you make the rudder deflection snap shot while closing at like 800 mph, you’re going to be nose-in to a debris field.
posted by OldReliable at 7:27 PM on August 22, 2020 [4 favorites]
Doing a nose-nose guns engagement at the merge is widely seen as suicide because assuming you make the rudder deflection snap shot while closing at like 800 mph, you’re going to be nose-in to a debris field.
posted by OldReliable at 7:27 PM on August 22, 2020 [4 favorites]
Doing a nose-nose guns engagement at the merge is widely seen as suicide because assuming you make the rudder deflection snap shot while closing at like 800 mph, you’re going to be nose-in to a debris field.
These weren't planes, they were AA missiles in an F-16 airframe.
posted by geoff. at 7:52 PM on August 22, 2020 [4 favorites]
These weren't planes, they were AA missiles in an F-16 airframe.
posted by geoff. at 7:52 PM on August 22, 2020 [4 favorites]
I, and only I, know how war will be fought in the future, and it's not the dumb way you think
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 7:53 PM on August 22, 2020 [9 favorites]
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 7:53 PM on August 22, 2020 [9 favorites]
Peter Watts has an excellent short story about AI-powered fighters: "Malak" (pdf)
It is smart but not awake.posted by teraflop at 7:55 PM on August 22, 2020 [11 favorites]
It would not recognize itself in a mirror. It speaks no language that doesn’t involve electrons and logic gates; it does not know what Azrael is, or that the word is etched into its own fuselage. It understands, in some limited way, the meaning of the colours that range across Tactical when it’s out on patrol – friendly Green, neutral Blue, hostile Red – but it does not know what the perception of colour feels like.
^f second
^f variety
^f dickAw man, really?
posted by mikelieman at 8:15 PM on August 22, 2020 [1 favorite]
I, and only I, know how war will be fought in the future, and it's not the dumb way you think
I believe this is an Einstein quote
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 8:29 PM on August 22, 2020 [6 favorites]
I believe this is an Einstein quote
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 8:29 PM on August 22, 2020 [6 favorites]
The Self Healing Minefield (SHM) is comprised of a networked system of mobile anti-tank landmines. When the mines detect a breach, each calculates an appropriate response, and some fire small rockets to "hop" into the breach path, healing the breach.
So, they're basically already up to DS9 standards.
Also, WRT simultaneous Terminator and Star Trek future-achieving, the Air Force is working on a drone named Skyborg.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:54 PM on August 22, 2020 [3 favorites]
So, they're basically already up to DS9 standards.
Also, WRT simultaneous Terminator and Star Trek future-achieving, the Air Force is working on a drone named Skyborg.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:54 PM on August 22, 2020 [3 favorites]
I've "enjoyed" that one of the terms that gets used in this context is a "loyal wingman" drone. It's sort of like naming your product "Certainly No Rat Urine Here Orange Juice" or "Nonlethal Bananas."
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:02 PM on August 22, 2020 [19 favorites]
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:02 PM on August 22, 2020 [19 favorites]
^f second
^f variety
^f dick
Incidentally, Second Variety Dick is the name of my new 80's post-punk cover band.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:03 PM on August 22, 2020 [9 favorites]
^f variety
^f dick
Incidentally, Second Variety Dick is the name of my new 80's post-punk cover band.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:03 PM on August 22, 2020 [9 favorites]
All you have to do is play any number of online multiplayer shooters and take notice of the 'cheaters' that are using auto-aiming software aids to rapidly out-compete those without computational help to see where things are going.
posted by overhauser at 9:30 PM on August 22, 2020
posted by overhauser at 9:30 PM on August 22, 2020
Has there been any cool dogfights lately? I think of fighters these days as delivering bombs to homes and hospitals in Syria and Yemen, and fucking around with ships near borders.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 9:37 PM on August 22, 2020
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 9:37 PM on August 22, 2020
Has there been any cool dogfights lately? I think of fighters these days as delivering bombs to homes and hospitals in Syria and Yemen, and fucking around with ships near borders.
The US has only had one in the last twenty years. I'm guessing a combination of air superiority, caution due to the price of the craft and overall better battlefield awareness limits most leading countries from engaging adversaries. Here's an article on the last dogfight, the longer range Sidewinder failed to fire, so a medium length missile took down the target at a half mile (2640 ft). Even at that distance he had to veer left to avoid the debris field. Compare that to the 100 ft risk the AI took. Realistically for that kind of engagement you'd have multiple failures of multiple missiles.
I don't know the training procedures if you lose everything but your internal cannon, but I'm guessing it is to disengage. For comparison, only one variant of the F-35 actually carries an internal cannon, with limited in ammunition, and that's for ground targets. At close to $80million a unit, they're not going to want AI ramming into some dated Russian MiG. The expensive missiles the planes carry are for that.
posted by geoff. at 9:52 PM on August 22, 2020 [6 favorites]
The US has only had one in the last twenty years. I'm guessing a combination of air superiority, caution due to the price of the craft and overall better battlefield awareness limits most leading countries from engaging adversaries. Here's an article on the last dogfight, the longer range Sidewinder failed to fire, so a medium length missile took down the target at a half mile (2640 ft). Even at that distance he had to veer left to avoid the debris field. Compare that to the 100 ft risk the AI took. Realistically for that kind of engagement you'd have multiple failures of multiple missiles.
I don't know the training procedures if you lose everything but your internal cannon, but I'm guessing it is to disengage. For comparison, only one variant of the F-35 actually carries an internal cannon, with limited in ammunition, and that's for ground targets. At close to $80million a unit, they're not going to want AI ramming into some dated Russian MiG. The expensive missiles the planes carry are for that.
posted by geoff. at 9:52 PM on August 22, 2020 [6 favorites]
Future confrontations will last only minutes. Once air superiority is established all that is left to do is withdraw and relinquish whatever it was you were protecting. Then back to the drawing board...
But why bother wasting the fuel? Let’s just pit our AIs against one another in a simulation. Of course, I’m not going to reveal ALL my AI secrets in the simulation.
posted by etc. at 9:58 PM on August 22, 2020 [2 favorites]
But why bother wasting the fuel? Let’s just pit our AIs against one another in a simulation. Of course, I’m not going to reveal ALL my AI secrets in the simulation.
posted by etc. at 9:58 PM on August 22, 2020 [2 favorites]
I've "enjoyed" that one of the terms that gets used in this context is a "loyal wingman" drone. It's sort of like naming your product "Certainly No Rat Urine Here Orange Juice" or "Nonlethal Bananas."
Yep, it's just me and my AI wingman Skynet, protecting freedom...
missile lock warning
posted by lon_star at 10:04 PM on August 22, 2020 [2 favorites]
Yep, it's just me and my AI wingman Skynet, protecting freedom...
missile lock warning
posted by lon_star at 10:04 PM on August 22, 2020 [2 favorites]
Ah, ok, so the "rules" are not so much agreed-upon codes of conduct, but rather, rules of engagement where you don't kill yourself (and your expensive equipment).
So... to win against this particular AI strategy is... attrition?
posted by porpoise at 10:17 PM on August 22, 2020
So... to win against this particular AI strategy is... attrition?
posted by porpoise at 10:17 PM on August 22, 2020
Once air superiority is established all that is left to do is withdraw and relinquish whatever it was you were protecting... why bother wasting the fuel? Let’s just pit our AIs against one another in a simulation
Captain Kirk will not approve.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 10:31 PM on August 22, 2020 [2 favorites]
Captain Kirk will not approve.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 10:31 PM on August 22, 2020 [2 favorites]
Future confrontations will last only minutes. Once air superiority is established all that is left to do is withdraw and relinquish whatever it was you were protecting. Then back to the drawing board...
posted by jim in austin
For a short time. The we will have gauss gun/particle gun anti air weapons that can shoot anything out of the sky. No more aircraft. No more satellites. Back to the ground wars.
posted by Splunge at 1:09 AM on August 23, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by jim in austin
For a short time. The we will have gauss gun/particle gun anti air weapons that can shoot anything out of the sky. No more aircraft. No more satellites. Back to the ground wars.
posted by Splunge at 1:09 AM on August 23, 2020 [2 favorites]
Rat Things (Snow Crash) | Villains Wiki | Fandom.
Dogfights in the last 20 years... probably not. I've been watching Air Warriors on the Smithsonian channel from a 70's era child who remembers reading about the F-16 in Reader's Digest and wanted to go into the U.S. Air Force and be a fighter pilot as a career track to Astronaut... (I was too short to be a fighter pilot so... so much for that plan). But no, it's electronic warfare and fire-and-forget missile from beyond visual range. Planes already go too fast to really get into an old-time-like dogfight. IIRC, the Apache helicopter has (or is getting) drones to acquire targets over the horizon. Even without AI, things are still going electronic warfare and tech superiority over anything so mundane as chasing each other around the sky trying to hit each other with a 20mm cannon. You put that on an Apache so they can fly in low and slow and lay waste to things that glow white on the infra-red optics, or you use that 30mm on an A-10 air-tank to rip through a building or an actual tank. Planes don't actually shoot at each other that much (at least with humans at the helm) because they're too fast and dumb bullets are too slow that time and gravity makes it a crap shoot. Things went long-distance missile fights ages ago. There are probably only a couple or do actual dogfights with planes trying to shoot each other out of the sky.
At least until we get Turbo Laser Cannons and Inertial Dampening, and delta-v out the ... then we could maybe start dogfighting again.
posted by zengargoyle at 1:18 AM on August 23, 2020 [2 favorites]
Dogfights in the last 20 years... probably not. I've been watching Air Warriors on the Smithsonian channel from a 70's era child who remembers reading about the F-16 in Reader's Digest and wanted to go into the U.S. Air Force and be a fighter pilot as a career track to Astronaut... (I was too short to be a fighter pilot so... so much for that plan). But no, it's electronic warfare and fire-and-forget missile from beyond visual range. Planes already go too fast to really get into an old-time-like dogfight. IIRC, the Apache helicopter has (or is getting) drones to acquire targets over the horizon. Even without AI, things are still going electronic warfare and tech superiority over anything so mundane as chasing each other around the sky trying to hit each other with a 20mm cannon. You put that on an Apache so they can fly in low and slow and lay waste to things that glow white on the infra-red optics, or you use that 30mm on an A-10 air-tank to rip through a building or an actual tank. Planes don't actually shoot at each other that much (at least with humans at the helm) because they're too fast and dumb bullets are too slow that time and gravity makes it a crap shoot. Things went long-distance missile fights ages ago. There are probably only a couple or do actual dogfights with planes trying to shoot each other out of the sky.
At least until we get Turbo Laser Cannons and Inertial Dampening, and delta-v out the ... then we could maybe start dogfighting again.
posted by zengargoyle at 1:18 AM on August 23, 2020 [2 favorites]
real question, not snark: How does one become a "Top F-16 Pilot" seeing as how US pilots vanishingly-rarely ever engage in actual A2A combat (against any pilots even close to being considered peers, anyway) these days?
posted by Thorzdad at 5:04 AM on August 23, 2020
posted by Thorzdad at 5:04 AM on August 23, 2020
How does one become a "Top F-16 Pilot" seeing as how US pilots vanishingly-rarely ever engage in actual A2A combat (against any pilots even close to being considered peers, anyway) these days?
Practice. They spend quite a bit of time doing simulated engagements against other pilots in the same or different planes. Some of these will be practicing BFM (basic fighter maneuvers) in a 1 vs 1 fight like we saw here. There are rules to these including minimum distances from each other and the ground to avoid training accidents. Over time it becomes pretty clear who the top pilots are for this kind of fight. It's still considered important even though there have been so few instances of it happening for real.
Choosing to get into these kinds of dogfights was understood to be a tactical mistake some time around the middle of the first world war, but still happened a lot when planes only had guns as weapons. And sometimes the tactical situation is such that your foe forces you to engage in a dogfight or be killed, so it's good to know how to do it.
Modern air combat begins well beyond visual range, with radar and other sensors, long range missiles, and data links to share information between forces in the battle space. There are still tactics and maneuvers to perform for this, but they're very different than what we saw here, and to a large extent, classified as well. When fighter pilots play fighter video games, they tend to avoid a lot of the BVR stuff just to avoid accidentally revealing classified info like weapon capabilities and tactics to defeat them.
Speaking of that, when real fighter pilots jump into the more realistic games, they often struggle at first. Some of it is the planes don't perform exactly like the real ones do, but so of it is the lack of being able to feel what the plane is doing, and limitations on the visual presentation, that take some getting used to. The rules can also be relaxed since no one is really going to die if you smash into each other or the ground, and that changes things. I wonder how much that was a factor with this experiment?
Similarly I'm not sure how an AI would do in the real word, where it can't receive a data feed that accurately conveys everything it needs to know about the situation. How will it do when it needs to use the plane's sensors (with presumably some extra ones like cameras) to figure out where its opponent is and what they're doing at that instant? The old Mk I eyeball and human brain are very good at that stuff compared to AI (and especially "AI").
posted by FishBike at 5:39 AM on August 23, 2020 [6 favorites]
Practice. They spend quite a bit of time doing simulated engagements against other pilots in the same or different planes. Some of these will be practicing BFM (basic fighter maneuvers) in a 1 vs 1 fight like we saw here. There are rules to these including minimum distances from each other and the ground to avoid training accidents. Over time it becomes pretty clear who the top pilots are for this kind of fight. It's still considered important even though there have been so few instances of it happening for real.
Choosing to get into these kinds of dogfights was understood to be a tactical mistake some time around the middle of the first world war, but still happened a lot when planes only had guns as weapons. And sometimes the tactical situation is such that your foe forces you to engage in a dogfight or be killed, so it's good to know how to do it.
Modern air combat begins well beyond visual range, with radar and other sensors, long range missiles, and data links to share information between forces in the battle space. There are still tactics and maneuvers to perform for this, but they're very different than what we saw here, and to a large extent, classified as well. When fighter pilots play fighter video games, they tend to avoid a lot of the BVR stuff just to avoid accidentally revealing classified info like weapon capabilities and tactics to defeat them.
Speaking of that, when real fighter pilots jump into the more realistic games, they often struggle at first. Some of it is the planes don't perform exactly like the real ones do, but so of it is the lack of being able to feel what the plane is doing, and limitations on the visual presentation, that take some getting used to. The rules can also be relaxed since no one is really going to die if you smash into each other or the ground, and that changes things. I wonder how much that was a factor with this experiment?
Similarly I'm not sure how an AI would do in the real word, where it can't receive a data feed that accurately conveys everything it needs to know about the situation. How will it do when it needs to use the plane's sensors (with presumably some extra ones like cameras) to figure out where its opponent is and what they're doing at that instant? The old Mk I eyeball and human brain are very good at that stuff compared to AI (and especially "AI").
posted by FishBike at 5:39 AM on August 23, 2020 [6 favorites]
Remember when we thought that the wars of the future would be fought with nuclear weapons? And then the next seventy years were filled with wars fought dirty in jungles and deserts and city streets?
posted by clawsoon at 5:55 AM on August 23, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by clawsoon at 5:55 AM on August 23, 2020 [6 favorites]
Pepperidge Farm remembers.
posted by clawsoon at 5:59 AM on August 23, 2020 [15 favorites]
posted by clawsoon at 5:59 AM on August 23, 2020 [15 favorites]
Why not both?
posted by glonous keming at 6:09 AM on August 23, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by glonous keming at 6:09 AM on August 23, 2020 [1 favorite]
So... to win against this particular AI strategy is... attrition?
Does nobody watch anime? You have to dodge head-on through the missile volley, then turn off the safety limits and kamikaze yourself into it in a dramatic sacrifice.
Oh and don't let the AI start singing. The singing is bad, m'kay?
posted by automatronic at 6:22 AM on August 23, 2020 [5 favorites]
Does nobody watch anime? You have to dodge head-on through the missile volley, then turn off the safety limits and kamikaze yourself into it in a dramatic sacrifice.
Oh and don't let the AI start singing. The singing is bad, m'kay?
posted by automatronic at 6:22 AM on August 23, 2020 [5 favorites]
Hmm. Seems to me like we might be entering some kind of danger zone.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 6:54 AM on August 23, 2020 [9 favorites]
posted by Huffy Puffy at 6:54 AM on August 23, 2020 [9 favorites]
Another interesting tweet, from a former fighter pilot who also happens to be a roboticist:
No surprise here- dogfighting is extremely rules based, whoever can fly the longest on the edge of the maneuvering envelop wins. Humans had no chance. When the AI in the plane can consistently discriminate between combatants and non-combatants, call me http://hal.pratt.duke.edu/sites/hal.pratt.duke.edu/files/u35/LAWS%20ban%20R1.pdf
I know nothing about any of this though so ymmv
posted by dubitable at 7:03 AM on August 23, 2020 [2 favorites]
No surprise here- dogfighting is extremely rules based, whoever can fly the longest on the edge of the maneuvering envelop wins. Humans had no chance. When the AI in the plane can consistently discriminate between combatants and non-combatants, call me http://hal.pratt.duke.edu/sites/hal.pratt.duke.edu/files/u35/LAWS%20ban%20R1.pdf
I know nothing about any of this though so ymmv
posted by dubitable at 7:03 AM on August 23, 2020 [2 favorites]
> Choosing to get into these kinds of dogfights was understood to be a tactical mistake some time around the middle of the first world war, but still happened a lot when planes only had guns as weapons. And sometimes the tactical situation is such that your foe forces you to engage in a dogfight or be killed, so it's good to know how to do it.
in which i talk vaguely about something i know nothing about (but what's new?), but wasn't a lack of dogfight capabilities a serious problem for the united states air force during the colonialist war against the people of vietnam? like, u.s. jets and u.s. training programs were designed for total nuclear war against the soviet union (a context where a fighter jet's role would be exclusively over-the-horizon missile combat) and so vietnamese pilots were able to exploit that by forcing close-range gunfights?
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 7:19 AM on August 23, 2020 [1 favorite]
in which i talk vaguely about something i know nothing about (but what's new?), but wasn't a lack of dogfight capabilities a serious problem for the united states air force during the colonialist war against the people of vietnam? like, u.s. jets and u.s. training programs were designed for total nuclear war against the soviet union (a context where a fighter jet's role would be exclusively over-the-horizon missile combat) and so vietnamese pilots were able to exploit that by forcing close-range gunfights?
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 7:19 AM on August 23, 2020 [1 favorite]
but wasn't a lack of dogfight capabilities a serious problem for the united states air force during the colonialist war against the people of vietnam? like, u.s. jets and u.s. training programs were designed for total nuclear war against the soviet union (a context where a fighter jet's role would be exclusively over-the-horizon missile combat) and so vietnamese pilots were able to exploit that by forcing close-range gunfights?
Yes, and it was in response to this that the US created new training programs to focus on dogfighting skills.
You may have heard of some of them.
posted by automatronic at 7:32 AM on August 23, 2020 [5 favorites]
Yes, and it was in response to this that the US created new training programs to focus on dogfighting skills.
You may have heard of some of them.
posted by automatronic at 7:32 AM on August 23, 2020 [5 favorites]
isn’t the bigger risk a swarm of cheap drones that just disable any kind of large expensive plane (AI or not) by running into it and/or being sucked into the air intakes?
posted by rockindata at 7:35 AM on August 23, 2020
posted by rockindata at 7:35 AM on August 23, 2020
isn’t the bigger risk a swarm of cheap drones that just disable any kind of large expensive plane (AI or not) by running into it and/or being sucked into the air intakes?
I expect that in military procurement, even the "cheap" drones ain't cheap.
posted by mikelieman at 7:44 AM on August 23, 2020
I expect that in military procurement, even the "cheap" drones ain't cheap.
posted by mikelieman at 7:44 AM on August 23, 2020
I expect that in military procurement, even the "cheap" drones ain't cheap.
"Fast,cheap expensive, and out of control."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:47 AM on August 23, 2020
"Fast,
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:47 AM on August 23, 2020
Ah, ok, so the "rules" are not so much agreed-upon codes of conduct, but rather, rules of engagement where you don't kill yourself (and your expensive equipment).
I would think less of actual air combat and more about air combat training. If it seems like needs must, I expect a pilot will go ahead and pull that kamikaze run anytime a 1/10 chance of getting killed by the debris cloud (or her opponent's gun) is better than a 6/10 chance of getting blowed up if she tries to disengage.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 8:22 AM on August 23, 2020
I would think less of actual air combat and more about air combat training. If it seems like needs must, I expect a pilot will go ahead and pull that kamikaze run anytime a 1/10 chance of getting killed by the debris cloud (or her opponent's gun) is better than a 6/10 chance of getting blowed up if she tries to disengage.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 8:22 AM on August 23, 2020
The issue with dogfighting during Vietnam is that the rules of engagement required visual confirmation, so any kind of beyond visual range attack was off the table. The Pentagon didn’t want fighter jocks accidentally shooting down Chinese or Russian aircraft.
posted by chrchr at 9:59 AM on August 23, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by chrchr at 9:59 AM on August 23, 2020 [1 favorite]
this is where i admit that i've never seen top gun. i hear that although it's a queer movie they worked in some subtle heterosexual subtext that was actually pretty blatant for the standards of the time.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 10:02 AM on August 23, 2020 [10 favorites]
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 10:02 AM on August 23, 2020 [10 favorites]
Remember when we thought that the wars of the future would be fought with nuclear weapons? And then the next seventy years were filled with wars fought dirty in jungles and deserts and city streets?
Or....https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/01/30/the-littlest-boy/
In our times, though, imagine bunkers filled with post-adolescent gamers using remotely controlled rail guns to shoot hypersonic ballistic needles at incoming drones, a sort of "Enders Game" version of a pre-apocalypse.
Ha ha. Just foolilng. We couldn't possible do anything that stupid. We're all going to stand in a big circle holding hands, singing kumbaya in three-part harmony, while our engineers built orphanages and hospitals and water points.
Okay, one of those is a bad dream and the other is a joke; don't tell me.
posted by mule98J at 10:07 AM on August 23, 2020
Or....https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/01/30/the-littlest-boy/
In our times, though, imagine bunkers filled with post-adolescent gamers using remotely controlled rail guns to shoot hypersonic ballistic needles at incoming drones, a sort of "Enders Game" version of a pre-apocalypse.
Ha ha. Just foolilng. We couldn't possible do anything that stupid. We're all going to stand in a big circle holding hands, singing kumbaya in three-part harmony, while our engineers built orphanages and hospitals and water points.
Okay, one of those is a bad dream and the other is a joke; don't tell me.
posted by mule98J at 10:07 AM on August 23, 2020
Possibly the least surprising news to come out of DARPA in a while. Of course AI will outperform humans in dogfighting, the AI can stand forces that humans can't, it's orders of magnitude faster, the only real hitch in your getalong is target identification. But once something human piloted has been designated as an acceptable target the AI should have no problem outperforming the human.
I recall a while back some Air Force person was discussing drones derisively and said that none of the current crop of drones could compete with an F-32. Which was a really horrible take since as of then exactly zero drones had ever been designed for air superiority so of course none of them could engage fighter jets anymore than a crop duster could.
I've maintained for a while that the future of combat, and policing in the suppression of dissent sense, is drones. I think that's a threat to freedom, if the elites don't need us for combat and can suppress dissent without having to worry about the soldiers mutinying if ordered to massacre a crowd of protesters, then the tools for authoritarianism exist and we all know that once a tool exists it will be used.
In a way we're headed towards a military/social order that existed once before. Back pre-gunpowder a ruler depended on maintaining the loyalty of a relatively small number of elite warrior aristocrats who were extremely expensive to train and equip. Then gunpowder came along and it was necessary to maintain the loyalty of a much larger number of cheaper soldiers. That and the industrial revolution elevated the status of ordinary people.
Soon all a ruler will need to maintain military power is the loyalty of a relatively small number of elite programmer warriors and again the great masses of humanity will be essentially irrelevant from a military standpoint. Coupled with industrial automation I'm deeply concerned for the future of us as a free society.
When the elites don't need us to make their stuff, or guard their stuff, why do they need us at all?
posted by sotonohito at 11:06 AM on August 23, 2020 [4 favorites]
I recall a while back some Air Force person was discussing drones derisively and said that none of the current crop of drones could compete with an F-32. Which was a really horrible take since as of then exactly zero drones had ever been designed for air superiority so of course none of them could engage fighter jets anymore than a crop duster could.
I've maintained for a while that the future of combat, and policing in the suppression of dissent sense, is drones. I think that's a threat to freedom, if the elites don't need us for combat and can suppress dissent without having to worry about the soldiers mutinying if ordered to massacre a crowd of protesters, then the tools for authoritarianism exist and we all know that once a tool exists it will be used.
In a way we're headed towards a military/social order that existed once before. Back pre-gunpowder a ruler depended on maintaining the loyalty of a relatively small number of elite warrior aristocrats who were extremely expensive to train and equip. Then gunpowder came along and it was necessary to maintain the loyalty of a much larger number of cheaper soldiers. That and the industrial revolution elevated the status of ordinary people.
Soon all a ruler will need to maintain military power is the loyalty of a relatively small number of elite programmer warriors and again the great masses of humanity will be essentially irrelevant from a military standpoint. Coupled with industrial automation I'm deeply concerned for the future of us as a free society.
When the elites don't need us to make their stuff, or guard their stuff, why do they need us at all?
posted by sotonohito at 11:06 AM on August 23, 2020 [4 favorites]
Off topic, but...
this is where i admit that i've never seen top gun. i hear that although it's a queer movie they worked in some subtle heterosexual subtext that was actually pretty blatant for the standards of the time.
Oh, yes, quite so. In fact you can entirely omit every scene with Kelly McGillis in it and leave the narrative intact. It was how it was shown to me the first time through and then I re-watched it without the omissions. Entirely grafted on.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 11:09 AM on August 23, 2020 [2 favorites]
this is where i admit that i've never seen top gun. i hear that although it's a queer movie they worked in some subtle heterosexual subtext that was actually pretty blatant for the standards of the time.
Oh, yes, quite so. In fact you can entirely omit every scene with Kelly McGillis in it and leave the narrative intact. It was how it was shown to me the first time through and then I re-watched it without the omissions. Entirely grafted on.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 11:09 AM on August 23, 2020 [2 favorites]
> Soon all a ruler will need to maintain military power is the loyalty of a relatively small number of elite programmer warriors and again the great masses of humanity will be essentially irrelevant from a military standpoint. Coupled with industrial automation I'm deeply concerned for the future of us as a free society.
i guess the most optimistic (er, uh, marginally least pessimistic?) spin i can put on this is that under this system a small neuromancer-style vanguard of extremely talented or well-positioned hard-left hackers could have a massively outsized influence on global conditions. but that’s silly, because 1) nation-states will generally be much better at cyberwarfare than non-state actors can be, 2) this is a superhero story and superheroes are inherently fascist.
frankly, this is a situation such that must we go beyond the (apt) medieval analogy you made, all the way to like analogies to the iliad and odyssey. a lucky few are blessed by [the gods/digital access] and wield [divine powers/ai superweapons], and everyone else is basically irrelevant.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 11:24 AM on August 23, 2020 [4 favorites]
i guess the most optimistic (er, uh, marginally least pessimistic?) spin i can put on this is that under this system a small neuromancer-style vanguard of extremely talented or well-positioned hard-left hackers could have a massively outsized influence on global conditions. but that’s silly, because 1) nation-states will generally be much better at cyberwarfare than non-state actors can be, 2) this is a superhero story and superheroes are inherently fascist.
frankly, this is a situation such that must we go beyond the (apt) medieval analogy you made, all the way to like analogies to the iliad and odyssey. a lucky few are blessed by [the gods/digital access] and wield [divine powers/ai superweapons], and everyone else is basically irrelevant.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 11:24 AM on August 23, 2020 [4 favorites]
So... to win against this particular AI strategy is... attrition?
Zapp Brannigan has your back on this.
posted by mrgoat at 12:56 PM on August 23, 2020 [2 favorites]
Zapp Brannigan has your back on this.
posted by mrgoat at 12:56 PM on August 23, 2020 [2 favorites]
in which i talk vaguely about something i know nothing about (but what's new?), but wasn't a lack of dogfight capabilities a serious problem for the united states air force during the colonialist war against the people of vietnam? like, u.s. jets and u.s. training programs were designed for total nuclear war against the soviet union (a context where a fighter jet's role would be exclusively over-the-horizon missile combat) and so vietnamese pilots were able to exploit that by forcing close-range gunfights?
The missiles at the time also sucked. So you'd have pilots shoot off all their missiles, and then have no way to continue fighting. So air combat sort of defaulted to dogfights again, which wasn't all that convenient, as the US air force had not equipped it's main fighters at the time with guns.
I used to play a lot of Jane's fighter simulations so I'm basically an expert on this topic.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 1:41 PM on August 23, 2020 [5 favorites]
The missiles at the time also sucked. So you'd have pilots shoot off all their missiles, and then have no way to continue fighting. So air combat sort of defaulted to dogfights again, which wasn't all that convenient, as the US air force had not equipped it's main fighters at the time with guns.
I used to play a lot of Jane's fighter simulations so I'm basically an expert on this topic.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 1:41 PM on August 23, 2020 [5 favorites]
The one condition that this drone was able to win in the removal of single biggest handicap that computers have.
Actually gaining control of autonomous military aircraft is going to be harder than it is being made out to be. The reason is the substantially the same reason that police radios have not been broadly hacked yet. When you have a defense critical apparatus like this the end users will use strong, pre shared, symmetric key encryption for communications. If compromise happens, it will occur through supply chains.
Instead, what is inevitable is an escalation in electronic warfare, fast signal processing, and offensive/counter signal generation. The goal is not to hack an AI, but to use superior human signal processing and contextual awareness to make that AI worthless at its job. A military AI in actual combat is a self driving car in a city full of bad actors doing everything possible to make that city undriveable. What's more, the ultimate weapon that all global powers wield has an inherent side effect of frying most electromagnetic/optical sensors.
This is the reason that there will almost certainly continue to be some sort of human being in the seat of a jet long past the point where they are a liability to the combat performance of that jet. Maneuverability may come from the array of short range combat drones under the ultimate control of the human, and the flight systems will work in tandem to enhance the reflexes and capabilities of that human, just as modern fly by wire systems do, but in the end, a machines only army is stupidly vulnerable to simple electronic warfare.
posted by Tzigefuss at 4:25 PM on August 23, 2020 [5 favorites]
Actually gaining control of autonomous military aircraft is going to be harder than it is being made out to be. The reason is the substantially the same reason that police radios have not been broadly hacked yet. When you have a defense critical apparatus like this the end users will use strong, pre shared, symmetric key encryption for communications. If compromise happens, it will occur through supply chains.
Instead, what is inevitable is an escalation in electronic warfare, fast signal processing, and offensive/counter signal generation. The goal is not to hack an AI, but to use superior human signal processing and contextual awareness to make that AI worthless at its job. A military AI in actual combat is a self driving car in a city full of bad actors doing everything possible to make that city undriveable. What's more, the ultimate weapon that all global powers wield has an inherent side effect of frying most electromagnetic/optical sensors.
This is the reason that there will almost certainly continue to be some sort of human being in the seat of a jet long past the point where they are a liability to the combat performance of that jet. Maneuverability may come from the array of short range combat drones under the ultimate control of the human, and the flight systems will work in tandem to enhance the reflexes and capabilities of that human, just as modern fly by wire systems do, but in the end, a machines only army is stupidly vulnerable to simple electronic warfare.
posted by Tzigefuss at 4:25 PM on August 23, 2020 [5 favorites]
I'm a bit iffy on that Tzigefuss. I mean, they're already doing plenty of ECM and ECCM, can they really do much more and if so why haven't they already? Humans depend almost entirely on sensor data presented and interpreted by computers, not the mk 1 human eyeball. Shit moves too fast and it's too far away for us to really eyeball anything these days.
You might have some worries about proper target identification, you don't want to end up targeting a commercial flight instead of an enemy jet after all.
But any successful drone will need at least a semi-autonomous mode for when communication with the base is lost, or suspected to be corrupt. At minimum it'll need to decide it's cut off and return to base to land, though the military may decide that if it's cut off then the best course of action is to find any random enemy and try to destroy it rather than coming home.
Of course nukes blind sensors and fry electronics. So what? The human piloted F-32 is just as useless post-EMP and flash as a fully autonomous drone would be. Plus bringing nukes to a dogfight is the sort of overkill that starts global thermonuclear war.
posted by sotonohito at 7:35 PM on August 23, 2020
You might have some worries about proper target identification, you don't want to end up targeting a commercial flight instead of an enemy jet after all.
But any successful drone will need at least a semi-autonomous mode for when communication with the base is lost, or suspected to be corrupt. At minimum it'll need to decide it's cut off and return to base to land, though the military may decide that if it's cut off then the best course of action is to find any random enemy and try to destroy it rather than coming home.
Of course nukes blind sensors and fry electronics. So what? The human piloted F-32 is just as useless post-EMP and flash as a fully autonomous drone would be. Plus bringing nukes to a dogfight is the sort of overkill that starts global thermonuclear war.
posted by sotonohito at 7:35 PM on August 23, 2020
I keep reading AI as "Al" as in short for "Allan" (or Allen) whenever I read AI related headlines is always about someone named Al defeating a chess master, or Al slays this or that, Al is always improving, or someday, Al figures out quantum gravity.
posted by juiceCake at 8:32 PM on August 23, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by juiceCake at 8:32 PM on August 23, 2020 [6 favorites]
juiceCake: I keep reading AI as "Al" as in short for "Allan" (or Allen) whenever I read AI related headlines is always about someone named Al defeating a chess master, or Al slays this or that, Al is always improving, or someday, Al figures out quantum gravity.
For a long time I thought that LinkedIn had something to do with natural logarithms.
Anyway, go Al, good for him with all the self-improvement.
posted by clawsoon at 8:36 PM on August 23, 2020 [3 favorites]
For a long time I thought that LinkedIn had something to do with natural logarithms.
Anyway, go Al, good for him with all the self-improvement.
posted by clawsoon at 8:36 PM on August 23, 2020 [3 favorites]
I finally had a chance to watch this commentary from French air force pilot "Ate" Chuet this morning. My French isn't good enough to follow all of it, and the English auto-translated subtitles are pretty rough, but I think I got the gist of it. He seems pretty unimpressed by the human pilot's tactical decisions overall. Also, the AI is very good at some things, but makes several big mistakes that the human pilot doesn't capitalize on.
Having watched literally hundreds of virtual dogfights with similar graphical presentation, some of these mistakes were obvious to me, too, and many look like the typical struggles real-world fighter pilots encounter when first starting out in the virtual air combat work. In particular they always struggle with airspeed management at first, ending up either much too fast or much too slow and then not reacting appropriately to that. In the last fight, the human pilot ends up circling around horizontally at something like 600 knots, which is not a good idea and the result is predictable. Go vertical to get down closer to corner speed so you can turn better, and turn some of that kinetic energy into potential energy that you can use to cash in later.
I have to wonder if the human pilot was struggling with the limitations of the virtual environment or was under orders not to use certain tactics? Or does this environment not accurately reflect the performance of the real F-16 in certain cases, as that's a common issue in simulations, too. Because a lot of what the human pilot does in these engagements doesn't make sense.
I'm watching to see if any of the other real-world fighter pilots who've gotten involved in the virtual air combat scene post any similar videos, but I haven't seen any others so far.
posted by FishBike at 7:31 AM on August 24, 2020
Having watched literally hundreds of virtual dogfights with similar graphical presentation, some of these mistakes were obvious to me, too, and many look like the typical struggles real-world fighter pilots encounter when first starting out in the virtual air combat work. In particular they always struggle with airspeed management at first, ending up either much too fast or much too slow and then not reacting appropriately to that. In the last fight, the human pilot ends up circling around horizontally at something like 600 knots, which is not a good idea and the result is predictable. Go vertical to get down closer to corner speed so you can turn better, and turn some of that kinetic energy into potential energy that you can use to cash in later.
I have to wonder if the human pilot was struggling with the limitations of the virtual environment or was under orders not to use certain tactics? Or does this environment not accurately reflect the performance of the real F-16 in certain cases, as that's a common issue in simulations, too. Because a lot of what the human pilot does in these engagements doesn't make sense.
I'm watching to see if any of the other real-world fighter pilots who've gotten involved in the virtual air combat scene post any similar videos, but I haven't seen any others so far.
posted by FishBike at 7:31 AM on August 24, 2020
Another problem that surfaced in Vietnam was the “golden BB” issue. Combat aircraft like the F-105 Thunderchief had been designed in the assumption that the major threat was surface-to-air or air-to-air missiles, and that if one hit you, you’d be dead regardless. So it had redundant control systems and electronics to guard against failures, but all routed through the same channel down the belly of the aircraft for efficiency and cost reasons.
The result was that if one small fragment of flak, or one soldier firing his rifle into the air as the F-105 went overhead, got lucky and hit that channel, all the redundant systems went out at once, leaving the pilot with no control in a plane that had all the glide characteristics of a brick.
Compare to the A-10, designed with those lessons in mind, which has control systems routed all over the place so that one golden BB can’t knock it down.
posted by McCoy Pauley at 7:44 AM on August 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
The result was that if one small fragment of flak, or one soldier firing his rifle into the air as the F-105 went overhead, got lucky and hit that channel, all the redundant systems went out at once, leaving the pilot with no control in a plane that had all the glide characteristics of a brick.
Compare to the A-10, designed with those lessons in mind, which has control systems routed all over the place so that one golden BB can’t knock it down.
posted by McCoy Pauley at 7:44 AM on August 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
I'm watching to see if any of the other real-world fighter pilots who've gotten involved in the virtual air combat scene post any similar videos, but I haven't seen any others so far.
So of course, as soon as I posted that comment, one appeared. This one is from C.W. "Mover" Lemoine, former F-16 pilot (and former F/A-18 pilot, and current T-38 pilot).
One thing I didn't know until watching this latest video: they didn't simulate firing the gun or how bullets work, at all. They just said if your enemy was somewhere in a narrow cone in front of your aircraft, then you are doing damage to it. That's a pretty serious simplification, and a lot of the "kills" seen in this wouldn't have actually worked if they had a more high-fidelity simulation, where you actually have to lead your target and predict their future flight path while they're maneuvering.
posted by FishBike at 9:38 AM on August 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
So of course, as soon as I posted that comment, one appeared. This one is from C.W. "Mover" Lemoine, former F-16 pilot (and former F/A-18 pilot, and current T-38 pilot).
One thing I didn't know until watching this latest video: they didn't simulate firing the gun or how bullets work, at all. They just said if your enemy was somewhere in a narrow cone in front of your aircraft, then you are doing damage to it. That's a pretty serious simplification, and a lot of the "kills" seen in this wouldn't have actually worked if they had a more high-fidelity simulation, where you actually have to lead your target and predict their future flight path while they're maneuvering.
posted by FishBike at 9:38 AM on August 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
Compare to the A-10, designed with those lessons in mind, which has control systems routed all over the place so that one golden BB can’t knock it down.
Casual readers should note that this barely touches on the sheer survivability of the A-10, which is designed to keep flying even if it is simultaneously missing:
The A-10 doesn't give a fuck.
posted by automatronic at 11:38 AM on August 24, 2020 [3 favorites]
Casual readers should note that this barely touches on the sheer survivability of the A-10, which is designed to keep flying even if it is simultaneously missing:
- one engine,
- one tail,
- one elevator, and
- half of one wing.
The A-10 doesn't give a fuck.
posted by automatronic at 11:38 AM on August 24, 2020 [3 favorites]
But any successful drone will need at least a semi-autonomous mode for when communication with the base is lost, or suspected to be corrupt. At minimum it'll need to decide it's cut off and return to base to land,
This mode is exactly how Iran took possession of a US autonomous drone in 2011: returning to base is dependent on GPS. All that was needed to subvert this behavior was a few fake GPS signals and a US combat drone was compelled to land in Iran.
posted by Tzigefuss at 9:20 PM on August 24, 2020
This mode is exactly how Iran took possession of a US autonomous drone in 2011: returning to base is dependent on GPS. All that was needed to subvert this behavior was a few fake GPS signals and a US combat drone was compelled to land in Iran.
posted by Tzigefuss at 9:20 PM on August 24, 2020
...the wars of the future would be fought with nuclear weapons...
Depending on whose finger is on the trigger, the future may befought bought with nuclear weapons: Colossus (1966) novel and The Forbin Project (1970) movie (trailer). No more gods or human governments, just an adolescent global AI network with an exponentially fast learning curve and a chip on its shoulder.
posted by cenoxo at 4:22 AM on August 25, 2020
Depending on whose finger is on the trigger, the future may be
posted by cenoxo at 4:22 AM on August 25, 2020
> > The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea...
> But why bother wasting the fuel? Let's just pit our AIs against one another in a simulation.
maybe the wars of the future can be fought in microsoft flight simulator, with AI caribou :P
posted by kliuless at 4:44 PM on August 25, 2020
> But why bother wasting the fuel? Let's just pit our AIs against one another in a simulation.
maybe the wars of the future can be fought in microsoft flight simulator, with AI caribou :P
"We can spin up as many virtual machines as we want," he said with no small bit of pride. "If we want to have a million-animal caribou herd where every caribou is running its own AI, we can do that. The boundary of the local machine is broken. That is no longer a barrier for us to do things. Now it really just comes down to, 'What do you want to simulate?' We dream about these things a lot. Now, the dream is no longer some vapor that goes away. It is all totally possible."A more detailed, colorful map & product war rooms!
posted by kliuless at 4:44 PM on August 25, 2020
In case anyone's interested, "Mover" is currently doing a live stream with the developers. Among other interesting point so far, the human pilot apparently had only two days or so of experience in the simulated environment. And it sounds like they've agreed to put their AI up against the winner of an upcoming DCS tournament, so it'll be interesting to see how it does against someone more familiar with the challenges of a simulated environment (though not exactly the same one).
posted by FishBike at 11:26 AM on September 7, 2020
posted by FishBike at 11:26 AM on September 7, 2020
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