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DARPA, U.S. Air Force fly AI-controlled F-16

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Re: DARPA, U.S. Air Force fly AI-controlled F-16

#41

Post by codeddesign »

tokai wrote: post #31
Zsfe510asG wrote: post #14

The article smells of AI psychosis. They are already "orchestrating". In the first Iraq war, they went in and won. In the second one, it took years to sort of occupy the country. Now they struggle against Iran and "orchestrate" F-16s that can be shot down instantly by AA weapons. Since COVID the world has collectively lost its mind.

What are you talking about, Iraq fell in a month not years.

Did it? You mean operational govt fell. The country was fought over for 10 yrs, which the U.S. then backed out.

Israel got a regime change while U.S. tax payers received the bill.

In the end, it’s still a country.

Re: DARPA, U.S. Air Force fly AI-controlled F-16

#42

Post by whartung »

justsomehnguy wrote: post #34
FrustratedMonky wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drones really changed the equation more than Covid. Autonomous F-16's already can win against all human pilots. This would have been big 20 years ago. Now the cheap drones make it not the biggest deal anymore.

> Autonomous F-16's already can win against all human pilots. In a dogfight?

As I understand it, they done this in simulation, and the human pilots did not fare well.

I don't know of the computer aircraft were able to fly beyond human limits (i.e. they don't black out) or not. If the computers can actually fly to what the airframe is capable of, they would have a distinct advantage over the human pilots.

Re: DARPA, U.S. Air Force fly AI-controlled F-16

#43

Post by StableAlkyne »

rvba wrote: post #29
throw310822 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the presence of humans on board limit the maneuverability of these aircraft in any way? E.g. in terms of acceleration?

Yes. Humans can survive 9g for only a few seconds, while a drone could do much sharper manouvers

While they can, drones are still limited by physics.

Sure, the aircraft can pull a ton of G's to defeat a missile or achieve a firing solution. Maybe it even succeeded at that.

It still pulled 9+ Gs and has burned an incredible amount of kinetic energy doing do. And the harder it pulls, the quicker it bleeds speed. It might not be able to defeat the next missile or outmaneuver the other plane's buddies because it is now slow and very likely outside its optimal turning speed.

Even today, missiles can pull dozens of G's yet still are defeatable by humans who can only pull about 9.

Re: DARPA, U.S. Air Force fly AI-controlled F-16

#44

Post by impulser_ »

chis wrote: post #40

Absolutely terrifying. I'm sure they will soon find that AI pilots defeat human ones in dogfights 100% of the time, since they have faster reaction times, can tolerate higher G forces, and can be perfectly RL trained in the flight sims we already have. It's really incredible to me that people aren't protesting in the streets over this stuff. Just in the last month we have * AI that goes rogue and hacks billion-dollar…

These systems still require a human to command the jet, they jsut don't have to be inside them.

"This critical testing will pave the way for human pilots to seamlessly command and orchestrate teams of autonomous, uncrewed aircraft."

The reason they are doing this is because the Military is already building a bunch of autonomous drones and fighter jets that already run on this system so they are retrofitting existing equipment with the same system so they can all fly together.

"Ultimately, the capabilities advanced under AIR will enable a wide variety of future joint force operations, including Collaborative Combat Aircraft programs."

Which are these:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manned-unmanned_teaming

And everyone is developing these.

Re: DARPA, U.S. Air Force fly AI-controlled F-16

#46

Post by philipwhiuk »

chis wrote: post #40

Absolutely terrifying. I'm sure they will soon find that AI pilots defeat human ones in dogfights 100% of the time, since they have faster reaction times, can tolerate higher G forces, and can be perfectly RL trained in the flight sims we already have. It's really incredible to me that people aren't protesting in the streets over this stuff. Just in the last month we have * AI that goes rogue and hacks billion-dollar…

> I'm sure they will soon find that AI pilots defeat human ones in dogfights 100% of the time,

Unfortunately you're wrong. It's not soon. It's 6 years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_AlphaDogfight

Re: DARPA, U.S. Air Force fly AI-controlled F-16

#47

Post by jauntywundrkind »

recursivedoubts wrote: post #9

A computer can never be held accountable Therefore a computer must make all unpopular management decisions

With apologies, I don't particularly enjoy when people do this, and I don't think it adds a lot, but I want to leave this breadcrumb, I wrote a post on this a couple days ago here, on an anti-AI screed submission, saying this anti-politic, this accountability denial, is very much the point.

Taking this quote and seeing exactly that potential for abuse seems very very much like the point. Strong agree, strongly against leaving non-seeing non-thinking alien intelligences with no accountability and proprietary programming to judge us. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48965083

Re: DARPA, U.S. Air Force fly AI-controlled F-16

#48

Post by philipwhiuk »

reactordev wrote: post #32

This is a huge waste of resources. F-16s were designed for humans. You can get MUCH better results designing the airframe around the lack of one.

It's a step on from the F-16 flight simulator AI competition in 2020: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_AlphaDogfight

Re: DARPA, U.S. Air Force fly AI-controlled F-16

#49

Post by IsTom »

chis wrote: post #40

Absolutely terrifying. I'm sure they will soon find that AI pilots defeat human ones in dogfights 100% of the time, since they have faster reaction times, can tolerate higher G forces, and can be perfectly RL trained in the flight sims we already have. It's really incredible to me that people aren't protesting in the streets over this stuff. Just in the last month we have * AI that goes rogue and hacks billion-dollar…

Are dogfights still relevant? Isn't it mostly shooting missiles outside of visual range these days?

Re: DARPA, U.S. Air Force fly AI-controlled F-16

#50

Post by jandrewrogers »

tyjen wrote: post #39

Human control in flight has often taken a backseat to automation. For example, the SR-71, built in the 60s flew too fast to rely on human decision making for several tasks. If they were off by a fraction of a second, they would miss their intended recon target; so, both the navigation and sensor control were largely automated. Seems odd to invest this much into AI flight of aircraft designed for manned flight, when i…

The US military has thousands of old airframes, many of which can be made flyable with very short turnaround. They already use the F-16 as test targets.

Taking an obsolete airframe that is already paid for and adding AI to it is much cheaper than building a completely new AI-native airframe from scratch. This is finding a new use for old aircraft. You can send a bunch of old AI-driven F-16s on high-risk missions without worrying about a human pilot or cost. The airframes may be relatively obsolete but can still do plenty of damage on their day.

The new 6th generation aircraft are all being designed as "manned optional". That is probably the last generation with affordances for a pilot.

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