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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

#211

Post by angry_octet »

dmix wrote: post #167
budman1 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it may have not been designed to, but it has been modified to. there may not be any stealth, but there are other countermeasures against missiles, AA, and other fighters.

Yes but everyone knows you can't eliminate the risk from modern MANPADs even with fancy electronic systems and flares. They are conducting combat flights over a country with thousands of chinese MANPADs, the fact they haven't lost more planes is really a great achievement. The US lost 73 planes in Desert Storm to Iraq and that war only lasted 43 days. By comparison the losses from Iran have been shockingly low and sh…

MANPADS are mostly relevant to helicopters, pretty useless against a jet at altitudes. You need a SHORAD system at the minimum, like a Pantsir, and they have electronic signatures that make them targets.

Most of the aircraft losses in Desert Storm were due to CFIT and flying into AAA and low altitude weapons. This was a relic of cold war tactics for penetrating Warsaw Pact defences. Once they started flying higher the problem was contained.

See.e.g. https://balloonstodrones.com/2022/10/19/looking-back-at-iraq...

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

#212

Post by crm9125 »

jryle70 wrote: post #148
SoftTalker wrote: post #22

> The kit utilizes a novel interface with the aircraft’s flight controls and mission systems, allowing a pilot to toggle between traditional human control and AI control with the flip of a switch. This ensures a safe, reliable environment for human-on-the-loop experimentation. How, exactly, does that ensure a safe reliable environment? Humans are pretty bad at suddenly taking over when an automatic system reaches its…

It's "human-on-the-loop experimentation", not mass production. Are you engineer? How do you experiment? I assume by pushing the boundaries step by step? How do you suggest they do testing if not by taking risk?

[dead]

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

#213

Post by bilalnpe »

ungreased0675 wrote: post #184
CrzyLngPwd wrote: post #101

So, it's a drone with uncessercary baggage such life support and a pilot that can't stand the Gs well. For some reason I am reminded of Dark Star :-)

Perhaps counterintuitively, the human is not the weak link when maneuverability is concerned. The airframe is. Pilots regularly fly right at the airframe limits, sometimes a little bit over.

Do they not bother designing airframes to withstand more because the human wouldn't survive it anyway?

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

#214

Post by EvanAnderson »

SoftTalker wrote: post #22

> The kit utilizes a novel interface with the aircraft’s flight controls and mission systems, allowing a pilot to toggle between traditional human control and AI control with the flip of a switch. This ensures a safe, reliable environment for human-on-the-loop experimentation. How, exactly, does that ensure a safe reliable environment? Humans are pretty bad at suddenly taking over when an automatic system reaches its…

A computer is "flying" the F-16 all the time anyway. It's a statically unstable aircraft.

I wonder if the AI control is giving inputs to the same flight controls system a human pilot would, or if it has a lower-level interface that could bypass the control laws in the human-operated system.

On one hand you might be interested in the AI coming up with ways to fly the aircraft that the normal control laws don't allow, but on the other hand you don't want the AI coming up with exciting new ways to depart from controlled flight (potentially in unrecoverable attitudes) with a pilot in the very expensive aircraft (even if the pilot could eject, which is an endeavor fraught with risk to life and limb).

Edit:

Presumably since there's a pilot in the aircraft the AI must be bound by at least some of the regular control laws that prevent the pilot from doing maneuvers that would, from a G-loading perspective, be incompatible with human life.

At least one would hope.

I don't think I'd go flying with a virtual pilot that was capable of flying the aircraft in a manner that could kill me but otherwise leave the aircraft intact.

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

#215

Post by Terr_ »

georgemcbay wrote: post #171
asdfman123 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Updated to reflect modern realities: > In a panic, they try to pull the plug. Skynet lobbyists descend upon Washington. Skynet is reinstated, and later the US declares a new war in the middle east. The Skynet stock rallies.

> Skynet lobbyists descend upon Washington. 2026 Skynet wouldn't bother sending humans to lobby in Washington, lobbying is a slow and outdated way of currying government favor with no assurances of success. 2026 Skynet would just move a large block of cryptocurrency over to World Liberty Financial and get itself a guaranteed blanket presidential pardon.

> get itself a guaranteed blanket presidential pardon

Likely already in-mind for parent poster, but a fitting headline from this week: "Trump Invents the Corporate Pardon."

(https://newrepublic.com/article/213393/trump-corporate-pardo...)

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

#216

Post by tonyhart7 »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #2

All Stealth bombers are upgraded with Cyberdyne computers, becoming fully unmanned. Afterwards they fly with a perfect operational record. The Skynet funding bill is passed. The system goes on-line on August 4, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.

replace Cyberdine with Palantir and Skynet with Grok AI

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

#217

Post by EvanAnderson »

angry_octet wrote: post #203
SoftTalker wrote: post #22

> The kit utilizes a novel interface with the aircraft’s flight controls and mission systems, allowing a pilot to toggle between traditional human control and AI control with the flip of a switch. This ensures a safe, reliable environment for human-on-the-loop experimentation. How, exactly, does that ensure a safe reliable environment? Humans are pretty bad at suddenly taking over when an automatic system reaches its…

It doesn't, flying these is potentially very dangerous, there are many non-recoverable situations. But AFRL/NASA has been working on this for decades. The manoeuvres the higher level AI requests are actioned by highly assured dynamical systems solvers using model predictive control, like the autopilot, that maintain the aircraft in the safe envelope. The unknowns in this system are (a) how agressive is the flight con…

The flight control system in modern fighter jets makes human-induced departure from controlled flight difficult to get into. That's the point of the system.

There's a good F-22 pilot talk recorded at MIT a few years ago you might enjoy. The pilot described the F-22 as the easiest aircraft he's ever flown because the flight control system handles many of the considerations (stress on the airframe, staying out of attitudes that would deviate, etc) you'd have to be mindful of in lower-tech aircraft. He talked about being more comfortable putting a non-pilot into a Raptor vs. a 172.

Edit: I believe this is the talk: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/16-687-private-pilot-ground-scho...

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

#218

Post by Terr_ »

mrob wrote: post #179
sandworm101 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flying is not driving. Things dont happen as quickly. Kids dont step out in front of jets at 30,000 feet. Air is also homogenous. Pavement is not. Whereas a car must turn or die, a jet can generally fly straight and level without issue while problems get solved. An out-of-control car has maybe three seconds before a collision. A jet will generally have over a minute to get back under control. Sure, there are moments.…

>Stable aerodynamics The F-16 is famously the first production aircraft with unstable aerodynamics, to increase maneuverability. It's not flyable without computer assistance. This is standard for all modern fighter jets.

I think we need to start distinguishing between different qualitative grades of "computer assistance" here. The executive decision of "fly north instead of east" is on a different tier than "increase angle of flap more than normal to compensate for under-performing in prior maneuver."

In the broadest sense, my car is not drive-able without computer assistance either, because if you burn out the computers the engine won't start.

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

#219

Post by EvanAnderson »

orochimaaru wrote: post #105
1970-01-01 wrote: post #2

All Stealth bombers are upgraded with Cyberdyne computers, becoming fully unmanned. Afterwards they fly with a perfect operational record. The Skynet funding bill is passed. The system goes on-line on August 4, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.

About time. We are a couple of decades late to the apocalypse.

A macabre counterpoint to "It's xxx year, where's my flying car?"

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

#220

Post by Terr_ »

bilalnpe wrote: post #213
ungreased0675 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps counterintuitively, the human is not the weak link when maneuverability is concerned. The airframe is. Pilots regularly fly right at the airframe limits, sometimes a little bit over.

Do they not bother designing airframes to withstand more because the human wouldn't survive it anyway?

Yeah, we already have decades of prior-art for what can be done if you take a flying machine, remove the pilot, and then aggressively specialize the aggression, which are missiles that can experience up to 100 gees.
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