An AI-controlled warplane took a senior Air Force leader for a ride on a groundbreaking test flight over California.
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall sat in the cockpit as the experimental F-16 jet, named Vista, performed extremely fast maneuvers at more than 550 mph over Edwards Air Force Base.
He almost came face to face with a second human-piloted F-16 as they both raced within 300 meters of each other, twisting and turning to try to force their opponent into vulnerable positions.
Kendall’s escape was yet another statement of trust in artificial intelligence after the first known combat between a human pilot and an AI-controlled fighter jet last month.
Thursday’s flight lasted an hour and the US Air Force expects to have more than 1,000 AI-controlled jets in the coming years.
“It’s a safety hazard not to have it. At this point, we need to have it,” Kendall said after exiting the cabin smiling.
Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall was in the cockpit. Photo: AP
Kendall said there will always be human supervision when weapons are used. Photo: AP
Pilots working on Vista want the first fleet to be ready by 2028 and say the programs are learning so quickly that some are already beating human pilots in combat.
The idea is that unmanned aircraft can provide an advanced attack on enemy defenses and penetrate airspace without high risk to human pilots.
But the change is also driven by cost, as AI planes are smaller and cheaper to produce.
The US Air Force is still hampered by delays and cost overruns in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, which will cost around $1.7 billion (£1.35 billion).
Meanwhile, China’s air force is on track to surpass that of the US and is also developing unmanned weapons – although there is still no indication that it has found a way to execute AI testing outside of a simulator.
‘Concerns about life and death decisions’
Vista operators, who have flown it about two dozen times since September, say no other country has a similar AI jet – where the software learns from millions of data points in a simulator and then tests its conclusions in real flights. .
Real-world performance data is fed back into the simulator, where the AI processes it to learn more.
Air Force chief Frank Kendall was so impressed that he said he would trust him to decide whether to launch weapons into the war.
It’s a controversial approach. Arms control experts and humanitarian groups are concerned that AI might one day be able to drop bombs autonomously, without further human consultation, and are seeking restrictions on its use.
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“There are widespread and serious concerns about handing over life-and-death decisions to sensors and software,” warned the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Kendall said there will always be human supervision when weapons are used.
The pilots programming Vista are aware that they are potentially training their own replacements, but they would also fear facing an enemy AI fleet themselves.
“We have to keep running. And we have to run fast,” Kendall said.
This story originally appeared on News.sky.com read the full story
