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An AI Just Embarrassed the US Air Force in a Virtual Dogfight

posted by Fnord666 on Saturday August 22 2020, @10:15AM   Printer-friendly
from the Tin-Man-will-prosecute dept.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:

An AI just embarrassed the US Air Force in a virtual dogfight:

We've already seen AI conquer masters of chess, Go, and StarCraft II. But could it defeat an Air Force pilot in a (virtual) dogfight?

[...] Heron [AI] quickly built up a 4-0 lead. Gunned down four times but somehow still alive, Banger [human] had no choice but to change up his gameplan.

"The standard things that we do as fighter pilots are not working, so for this last one, I'll try to change it up a little bit just to see if we can do something different," he said.

"That initial turn is where I lose a lot of life... I've just gotta look for opportunities to minimize that distance separation away from the adversary, try to get him back in so I press inside or stay outside his nose area."

Banger pulled up to 9Gs — nine times the force of gravity — and hit speeds over 500mph. He then dropped the jet down to 13,000 feet, trying to drag Heron close to the ground. The plan seemed to be working. Heron couldn't get its gun low enough to shoot.

But within a few seconds, the AI was back on Banger's tail. Lead commentator Chris "Disco" Demay called the action:

Just inside of 3,000 feet... Looks like Heron's saddling up — and with the kill.

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 22 2020, @02:54PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 22 2020, @02:54PM (#1040394)
    Doesn't matter since the AI got many kills. It takes decades longer to build and train a new human fighter pilot, than to build a replacement plane.

    And with AIs you don't always need as big a plane to kill, do dogfights or even do missions. In many cases AI missiles will do. If your missiles are less than 1/10th the cost of a fighter plane, the enemy is likely to run out of pilots, planes and other expensive targets before you run out of missiles. Missiles don't have to come back, especially if they succeed in their mission. So their effective range can be better.

    The issue is if the AIs start getting fooled or confused.
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  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday August 22 2020, @03:10PM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday August 22 2020, @03:10PM (#1040403) Journal

    the enemy is likely to run out of pilots, planes and other expensive targets before you run out of missiles.

    Maybe true. You don't want to get into a war of attrition with an opponent who controls more resources than you control. Imagine Taiwan going it alone against mainland China as an example. Keyword being "alone".

    https://news.usni.org/2020/08/12/taiwan-retooling-defenses-to-counter-a-belligerent-china [usni.org]

    https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3088755/taiwan-fires-missile-test-part-asymmetric-warfare-against [scmp.com]