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Consider it artificial military intelligence. The Department of Defense wants future generations of fighter aircraft to come with copilots already installed. According to the U.S. Naval Institute, both the Navy and the Air Force want their next generation air superiority fighter to have Artificial Intelligence. http://news.usni.org/2014/08/28/navys-next-fighter-likely-feature-artificial-intelligence
The F-X is a fighter concept in development to replace the Air Force’s current top dog, the stealthy F-22 Raptor, which is designed to outfight any other plane in the sky. However, the Raptor is expensive to produce, and it also suffered in some test dogfighting scenarios. Adding AI could free the pilot's mind to focus more on fewer tasks, giving them a cognitive advantage in battle.
Boeing’s Phantom Works are developing the F/A-XX Advanced Navy Strike Fighter to replace their own F/A-18 Super Hornet (or, more accurately, to replace the F-35C, which will replace the F/A-18 Super Hornet). It’s based on aircraft carriers, which are notoriously challenging to land on. The Navy’s own X-47B experimental drone has landed on an aircraft carrier successfully and autonomously, so adding a computer co-pilot to a naval craft could help there too.
http://www.popsci.com/article/technology/pentagon-wants-artificial-intelligence-future-fighters
(Score: 3, Funny) by buswolley on Wednesday September 03 2014, @08:29PM
To me this is news that is obvious. I mean, flying involves a number of controls and such, but from an obstacle perspective, it is a much simpler problem to solve than driving a car. The ground is there. Don't hit it. And so on.
subicular junctures
(Score: 3, Funny) by VLM on Wednesday September 03 2014, @09:59PM
What you're talking about is a terrain following autopilot, which is "old stuff" since the 80s or so.
I'm kinda puzzled what the AI would do, aside from joke answers.
My guess is a system to do ATC and teamwork besides human voice would be quite helpful. So your autopilot tells their autopilot you're breaking left so it would be highly wise for them to break right, without having to actually talk about it, all while informing ATC/AWACS whats up simultaneously.
Another combat aircraft PITA I know from simulators is there's about fifty crazy radar modes and an expert system might be quiet handy. Clippy pops up and says "I see you're in a turning battle, would you like to enable funnel target scanning in a narrow vertical bar rather than default surveillance scan mode?"
Some magic button that says "automatically do a better than half A job of running the ECM EECM and jammer gear" would probably help a busy pilot.
If you're supporting ground troops, having "siri" talk to them to authenticate and talk over what they want done might speed things along when you're really busy. "I'm sorry I can't come to the phone right now because I'm avoiding a infra red surface to air missile. But if you'd leave your name, serial number, and grid coordinates of your enemy target at the beep, I'd be glad to bomb them later... beeeep"
(Score: 2) by buswolley on Thursday September 04 2014, @01:08AM
Interesting ideas. My slightly tongue in cheek post earlier was serious
: flying is easier than driving for an AI to figure out. Its more controlled and there are fewer objects to identify.
AI makes sense for combat because it can withstand G forces we cannot, can potentially coordinate tactics much more quickly than humans with other aircraft. Expert systems could be employed seamlessly and with minimum switching cost (cognitive). I am pretty sure that at the tactical level AI could out fly duel any human today if properly implemented
subicular junctures
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday September 04 2014, @08:18AM
Tongue in between teeth at +6 G-force: OK, it may make you fart differently, but are you actually saying that since AI may be able to tolerate G-forces better than human pilots, that this some how makes them more moral? I prefer my war criminals to pass out on the sharp turns. Works out better for everyone.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 04 2014, @02:18PM
Well, an AI that can do joke answers would certainly also be an interesting project, but I guess not one the Pentagon would be very interested in.