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The US Air Force successfully tested AI-controlled jet fighter

arstechnica.com

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Re: The US Air Force successfully tested AI-controlled jet fighter

#41

Post by ceejayoz »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #16
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #6

The military always claims they will have a human 'in the loop' to make kill decisions. That promise will go out the window just as soon as other nations arm ai enabled drones with anti air missiles. There's no time for 'human in the loop' when the first to act survives. Thus down the slippery slope we go. In 20 years time we'll probably have aircraft that do figure eights over enemy territory for hours before automa…

> There's no time for 'human in the loop' when the first to act survives. Of course there is. "AI" controlled hardware doesn't care about getting out alive. A human is more likely to have an itchy trigger finger because a mistake means death.

"AI" controlled hardware doesn't care about anything. A human is more likely to say "wait, this order doesn't make sense" or "what if those are just civilians?"

Re: The US Air Force successfully tested AI-controlled jet fighter

#42

Post by GartzenDeHaes »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #6

The military always claims they will have a human 'in the loop' to make kill decisions. That promise will go out the window just as soon as other nations arm ai enabled drones with anti air missiles. There's no time for 'human in the loop' when the first to act survives. Thus down the slippery slope we go. In 20 years time we'll probably have aircraft that do figure eights over enemy territory for hours before automa…

This promise of "a human in the loop" can be met simply by adjusting the timing. For example, authorizing action prior to launch or remotely prior to engagement. This is what they do to allow single seat fighters to drop nuclear weapons, for example.

Re: The US Air Force successfully tested AI-controlled jet fighter

#43

Post by polishdude20 »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #6

The military always claims they will have a human 'in the loop' to make kill decisions. That promise will go out the window just as soon as other nations arm ai enabled drones with anti air missiles. There's no time for 'human in the loop' when the first to act survives. Thus down the slippery slope we go. In 20 years time we'll probably have aircraft that do figure eights over enemy territory for hours before automa…

If we've got AI bots able to do that kind of stuff, why would an enemy care anymore about military aged males?

Re: The US Air Force successfully tested AI-controlled jet fighter

#44

Post by scottLobster »

merely-unlikely wrote: post #33
alkonaut wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That promise will go out the window just as soon as other nations arm ai enabled drones with anti air missiles. Ethics don't go out the window because of autonomy. It's dark, but it's not somehow easy to shrug off as "ok no human then no ethics". We already have semi-autonomous weapons such as CIWS (Goalkeeper/Phalanx) which are autonomous because it's very tedious for a human to sit idle and wait for threats and t…

On your point about land mines, antipersonnel variants have actually been banned by the UN for a while now - "Anti-personnel landmines are prohibited under the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction (or Mine Ban Convention), adopted in 1997."[1] As you say, the ethics debate isn't really new. [1] https://www.un.org/disarmament/co…

Yeah, but I think historically that's going to be an anomaly brought on by the unipolar moment of US/Western military dominance, not a moment of ethical enlightenment. The US and its allies were so dominant that they didn't really need landmines to win anymore, and landmines are one of the cheapest effective deterrents their potential enemies could use. So it became yet another requirement for acceptance into the "rules based order" that just coincidentally benefits those enforcing the rules over those who have a different ethical perspective.

I'm not saying we should bring landmines back, but "human in the loop" AI warfare will only work so long as our AI maintains the same relative military dominance we've enjoyed for the last few decades. The moment an AI squadron gets wiped out because the human approval couldn't come fast enough, it'll go right out the window.

Re: The US Air Force successfully tested AI-controlled jet fighter

#45

Post by htrp »

MisterTea wrote: post #30
trumbitta2 wrote: post #10

Is it a generational thing that no one yet has mentioned Terminator?

Its so obvious at this point that I assume most of us are are going to be completely unsurprised when a t800 shows up on our door step to murder us.

https://xkcd.com/652/

Re: The US Air Force successfully tested AI-controlled jet fighter

#47

Post by [deleted] »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #6

The military always claims they will have a human 'in the loop' to make kill decisions. That promise will go out the window just as soon as other nations arm ai enabled drones with anti air missiles. There's no time for 'human in the loop' when the first to act survives. Thus down the slippery slope we go. In 20 years time we'll probably have aircraft that do figure eights over enemy territory for hours before automa…

[deleted]

Re: The US Air Force successfully tested AI-controlled jet fighter

#48

Post by scottLobster »

josho wrote: post #12

What will be interesting is when we design a fighter that doesn't have to accommodate a person. Its size can likely shrink and its performance envelope can be completely re-thought. E.g. Similar to the move from pets to cattle in computing. A jet fighter can very much be considered disposable and swap safety features for additional payloads. The squadron could first coordinate in a pattern far more sophisticated than…

I'm thinking it'll be more of a hybrid model, where you'll have a human in a fighter jet with an accompanying drone swarm, where the fighter serves primarily as a missile truck/Command and Control system, with perhaps the potential for direct human intervention in certain scenarios.

But I doubt pilots will be dog-fighting or doing their own bombing runs in the near future.

Re: The US Air Force successfully tested AI-controlled jet fighter

#49

Post by rtkwe »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #6

The military always claims they will have a human 'in the loop' to make kill decisions. That promise will go out the window just as soon as other nations arm ai enabled drones with anti air missiles. There's no time for 'human in the loop' when the first to act survives. Thus down the slippery slope we go. In 20 years time we'll probably have aircraft that do figure eights over enemy territory for hours before automa…

> There's no time for 'human in the loop' when the first to act survives.

That does depend a lot on the detection vs kill range vs time to kill. In a close air dog fight sure but most modern fighter doctrine is focused around long range kills and stealth already. Cannons are nearly vestigial on the F35, it only has ~4-5 seconds of ammo worth to fire.

Re: The US Air Force successfully tested AI-controlled jet fighter

#50

Post by ianburrell »

josho wrote: post #12

What will be interesting is when we design a fighter that doesn't have to accommodate a person. Its size can likely shrink and its performance envelope can be completely re-thought. E.g. Similar to the move from pets to cattle in computing. A jet fighter can very much be considered disposable and swap safety features for additional payloads. The squadron could first coordinate in a pattern far more sophisticated than…

I don’t know if there will be drone fighters. I think the idea is old thinking that can make a better dogfighter, but dog fighting is obsolete. The important question is would it be maneuverable enough to avoid anti-air missiles and it doesn’t sound like they would be.

Other problem is that they won’t be cheap. High performance military aircraft are expensive. My guess is only get factor of two in cost. Also, there is size tradeoff with payload. Drone that can’t carry AMRAAM is useless.

The purpose of fighters have changed. Missiles have taken over many of the roles. The roles that remain require intelligence. Both Ukraine and Russian fighters are not being used much because SAMs make things too dangerous. When they do, it is low level attacks that would be hard for drones.

I think developing drone fighter AI would be hard. Recent AI advances have been more about generation than planning. We could do it but would be expensive; look at how much has been spent on self-driving. The basic things are simple but the important things are complicated. For example, drone could have intercepted and shot down balloon but couldn’t have inspected balloon or involved in planning.

Finally, the US has pivoted from developing drone fighters to bomb truck. The idea would that accompany fighters and carry more ammo. It would be less maneuverable and simpler and use extra space for fuel and bombs. I think it is telling that multiple countries have tried drone fighters and none have gone for them.

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