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.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday August 22 2020, @12:08PM (11 children)
The meatsac can't maintain 5G, let alone 9G, for very long, because it will black out. The AI would only care about G-force if some bit of hardware were to break it's restraints, and go crashing into other hardware, thus disabling the aircraft.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 22 2020, @12:46PM (9 children)
> if some bit of hardware were to break it's restraints
Sure, but the real limit is when the wings come off...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by barbara hudson on Saturday August 22 2020, @02:28PM (7 children)
Interesting fact - the U-2 is one of the oldest aircraft in active service, and still has an average airframe lifespan left of 75%
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by Rupert Pupnick on Saturday August 22 2020, @02:40PM (2 children)
If the AI is so good that it can rack up a sufficiently large exchange ratio against opposing aircraft, it’s probably fine if the wings come off after the Nth kill, if N is large enough.
Also, aside from greater tolerance of G forces, an unmanned aircraft program has the potential to greatly reduce the costs and constraints associated with pilot training, readiness, rescue, etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 22 2020, @03:26PM
It's probably not a very large N, against humans, it just has to destroy enough planes that the pilots refuse to go up. Against other bots, it probably just needs to be more than 1 on average. For the US, for poorer countries, the N probably needs to be much higher.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Saturday August 22 2020, @05:20PM
Not to mention: the primary cost of a fighter jet is (usually) the pilot, and the primary cost of the pilot is in the expensive training. AI can download and share its training with future AIs in moments for near zero cost.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 22 2020, @02:54PM (1 child)
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.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday August 22 2020, @03:10PM
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]
(Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday August 22 2020, @04:25PM
On the other hand if you design a craft based on it never having a pilot in it there is a lot less room and systems you would have to devote to keeping the human inside the craft alive and in relative comfort. So a plan designed and built without having a human pilot in mind will probably look somewhat different. So you could probably reduce such airframe wear and tear if you just design it from new specs more suitable for the ai-pilot in charge.
(Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Saturday August 22 2020, @05:04PM
What percentage of airframe life is spent/lost in extreme maneuvers?
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 22 2020, @03:00PM
Are wings hardware?
(Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Saturday August 22 2020, @12:49PM
Spoiler: The "main event" was the AI that had just trounced a human in the "final" in a best-of-20 trouncing another human in a best-of-5.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Saturday August 22 2020, @12:22PM (2 children)
They're running the AI therefore they almost certainly have the AI, so they can use the AI to assist or replace their pilots.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 3, Disagree) by VLM on Saturday August 22 2020, @01:55PM (1 child)
For decades the AF has gotten into fly by wire and stability augmentation. Adding "a really smart autopilot" that helps perform digitally perfect ACM is mere evolution not revolution. Pilot starts pulling, clippy pops up on the HUD "I see you're trying to perform an unloaded extension, for digital ACM autopilot assist please press up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, and Start on the stick, or on the keyboard click backtick then type IDKFA Enter"
This 1 on 1 "knights in the sky" thing is mostly for video games and clickbait journalism.
The way a F-15 1 on 1 defeats a Mig-29 is AI assisted dogfight.
Oh wait that actually doesn't happen because the AWACS diverted a two CAPs of two F15 on the Mig as its taking off because we have total air supremacy. A coordinated prepared rehearsed four on one fight is a joke, the Mig never stood a chance. We can shoot down the first mig before the Mig's wingman takes off, LOL.
Oh wait we never diverted the CAP because our surface and naval SAMs shot it down from 100 miles away.
Oh wait our SAMs never shot it down because our A10/F16 CAS vaporized the Migs on the ground last week.
Oh wait the Migs didn't get vaporized on the ground because our SF guys parachuted in and laser designated the enemy TOC and the Mig pilot is a pink mist in a crater.
Oh wait the TOC was empty because our SF and CAS vaporized the enemy ammo depot.
Oh wait we never bothered vaporizing the ammo depot because our sub launched cruise missiles vaporized the logistics warehouse and without a steady stream of spare parts, jets don't fly. So the real battle was our logistics are stable enough that we can have eight of our jets flying CAP over the enemy capital city whereas they don't have the spare parts to launch one jet against us.
Oh wait we never blew up their spare parts because ... blah blah blah
My guess is we'll have digital ACM autopilot running the minor details of the fight leaving the humans to coordinate wingman and communicate with the ground and reprioritize mission goals and stuff like that. It won't be used to beat a -29 in 1 on 1 fighting but be used so 4 -16s on a ground attack mission can beat 8 -29s defending a ground target.
A topic I'm really interested in is extremely high res high frequency high power radar plus IR assist working together to autonomously defeat incoming missiles with extreme digital precision. The big aircraft is always going to have more energy on tap, more electrical power, more CPU cooling power, better aerodynamics, probably faster software updates, more storage, more sensors, than any incoming missile. Incoming missiles usually have stealth surprise and initial speed on their side. We may be able to make missile-proof planes in just a decade or two.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday August 22 2020, @03:20PM
Interesting series of non-events, or whatever you care to call it. It doesn't take into account our own mission failures though.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2020/08/19/two-us-mq-9-reaper-drones-reportedly-lost-in-syria-after-collision/#2c7e195d2270 [forbes.com]
https://www.rt.com/news/452116-iran-claims-control-us-drones/ [rt.com]
Note that "mission failure" is little different than the enemy defeating our personnel/hardware/software. A failure is a failure, in all cases.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday August 22 2020, @12:48PM (3 children)
If embarrassed is what they wanted I'm sure they could find some flight-game-nerd coming in and showing them up to since they probably logged an excessive amount of time in flight-sims and know all the little bugs and features to optimize the hell out of things.
That said, while pilots might hate it, isn't the future of combat aircraft unmanned aircraft (ucav) ? A smaller, craft that is just a flying weapons platform that if needed will take remote commands from the ground or some flying command center/node? Seems a lot of the usual suspects that engineer fighter planes are looking in that direction now. The robots or AI are taking the flying jobs from pilots ...
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a31122720/kratos-xq58a-valkyrie-future/ [popularmechanics.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmanned_combat_aerial_vehicle [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Saturday August 22 2020, @01:49PM (1 child)
And the problem with that is that it allows somebody else remote to take control of your weapons. This makes protection against hacking a LOT more important. Also to the extent that remote control is required, it's subject to jamming.
There are lots of obvious advantages, of course.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday August 22 2020, @02:22PM
Just put an AI in it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stealth_(film) [wikipedia.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Saturday August 22 2020, @05:22PM
Even if the unmanned aircraft have a small margin disadvantage in encounters, their lower cost when lost means that many more can be put "in harm's way" to achieve objectives at lower total cost than human piloted adversaries.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 22 2020, @12:56PM (2 children)
Aren't dog fights so 20th century? Really, if this kind of foolery ever started, an AWACS or other flying command post far away would just call in the appropriate air-to-air missile and end it quickly. A quick goog suggests these can turn at 30 g's or more.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 22 2020, @03:32PM (1 child)
Dog fights as people imagine them largely ended with the World Wars, the kind of tight maneuvers required to do so were pretty much only possible due to the relatively slow speeds of the aircraft. Not that much longer after the barrier to entry got to be rather extreme and only a handful of nations are even capable of producing planes that could engage in a dog fight.
These things happen over time, it's a bit like how the Bismark was a scourge a hundred years ago, but now aircraft carriers are more less the way that naval powers go. Same goes for those large cannons bombarding ports, there are better options for that as well, missiles or just flying bombers from further away.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Saturday August 22 2020, @05:27PM
When the SHTF next time, it's quite possible that "rods from the Gods" will pretty much end the concept of large capital ships in warfare. They may hang around for minor police actions, but if any nation starts dropping kinetic weapons from orbit, the game is over for any stationary or slow moving target on or near the surface. Even AirForce One is vulnerable.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by ealbers on Saturday August 22 2020, @01:01PM (4 children)
sigh, click bait article titles, nobodies 'embarrassed' by losing to an AI which can pull max G's a device can deliver against a wet bag of water and air sacks with 0.1sec response rate
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 22 2020, @01:06PM (3 children)
google Paul Bunion story
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday August 22 2020, @02:55PM (2 children)
You're right, that is pretty embarrassing - a man working himself to death in a vanity race to prove he could slightly outperform the very first generation of a new technology.
Almost as though it's actually a cautionary tale against hubris.
(Score: 2) by The Vocal Minority on Sunday August 23 2020, @04:36AM (1 child)
AlI get from goog and the duck are pages about Paul Bunyan?
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday August 24 2020, @12:33AM
Never mind, for some reason I was thinking John Henry.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 22 2020, @08:12PM
You’ll ride shotgun for a while, then .... ur gonna need to learn to code.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/01/success/self-landing-airplane-garmin-cirrus/index.html [cnn.com]