Seattle Times carrying a May 3, 2024, story. Of the three items posted today about items Seattle Times published, this one is most intriguing. It has a giant reach into the future of warfare:
AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning for an AI-enabled fleet of more than 1,000 unmanned warplanes, the first of them operating by 2028.
It was fitting that the dogfight took place at Edwards Air Force Base, a vast desert facility where Chuck Yeager broke the speed of sound and the military has incubated its most secret aerospace advances. Inside classified simulators and buildings with layers of shielding against surveillance, a new test-pilot generation is training AI agents to fly in war. Kendall traveled here to see AI fly in real time and make a public statement of confidence in its future role in air combat.
“It’s a security risk not to have it. At this point, we have to have it,” Kendall said in an interview with The Associated Press after he landed. The AP, along with NBC, was granted permission to witness the secret flight on the condition that it would not be reported until it was complete because of operational security concerns.
The AI-controlled F-16, called Vista, flew Kendall in lightning-fast maneuvers at more than 550 miles an hour that put pressure on his body at five times the force of gravity. It went nearly nose to nose with a second human-piloted F-16 as both aircraft raced within 1,000 feet of each other, twisting and looping to try force their opponent into vulnerable positions.
At the end of the hourlong flight, Kendall climbed out of the cockpit grinning. He said he’d seen enough during his flight that he’d trust this still-learning AI with the ability to decide whether or not to launch weapons in war.
There’s a lot of opposition to that idea. Arms control experts and humanitarian groups are deeply concerned that AI one day might be able to autonomously drop bombs that kill people without further human consultation, and they are seeking greater restrictions on its use.
“There are widespread and serious concerns about ceding life-and-death decisions to sensors and software,” the International Committee of the Red Cross has warned. Autonomous weapons “are an immediate cause of concern and demand an urgent, international political response.”
Kendall said there will always be human oversight in the system when weapons are used.
The military’s shift to AI-enabled planes is driven by security, cost and strategic capability. If the U.S. and China should end up in conflict, for example, today’s Air Force fleet of expensive, manned fighters will be vulnerable because of gains on both sides in electronic warfare, space and air defense systems. China’s air force is on pace to outnumber the U.S. and it is also amassing a fleet of flying unmanned weapons.
Future war scenarios envision swarms of American unmanned aircraft providing an advance attack on enemy defenses to give the U.S. the ability to penetrate an airspace without high risk to pilot lives. But the shift is also driven by money. The Air Force is still hampered by production delays and cost overruns in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which will cost an estimated of $1.7 trillion.
Smaller and cheaper AI-controlled unmanned jets are the way ahead, Kendall said.
The human always atop the technology was the theme of the Dave and HAL part of Kubrich's 2001, A Space Odyssey film.
Bot aircraft do not put a pilot at risk. Their airframes can withstand higher G's than a human pilot can take without a blackout, from too sharp an acceleration. And then there is the question raised in the film.
Of interest, the HAL computer was named as a transcription by one letter each, from IBM, which then was the 800 pound gorilla of high-tech. Then, later when Microsoft released its Windows New Technology product, the WNT letters were transcribed the other direction from VMS, the operating system DEC used before its demise.
Microsoft did not reinvent the wheel, as much as borrowing a design from elsewhere. Technology moves a step at a time. We now have ChatGPT and other Large Language Models in competition. Where that development leads, beyond product improvements over time, in terms of human workforce needs, is anyone's guess; the most prevalent guess being bots replacing human labor.
If bots do that in the military, with success, a parallel peaceful change can be expected.
For now the promise is less at-risk human pilots. Lack of need to make fighting aircraft conform to a need to support a live human inside being a design freedom that will make better, cheaper, faster, more numerous all happen. Clearly our U.S. military seeks to lead the field. Whatever the cost, get there first.
Warfare will differ from "Curse you, Red Baron" to "Curse you, VidGame," where nobody dies in the crash, but with "VidGame" winning the dogfight, it goes on to do what warplanes do, Gaza being an example.