The dawn of the era of AI fighter pilots

According to the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Technology, the fighter jet with autonomous features would allow pilots to become "battle managers", directing teams of drones "like a soccer coach who selects team members and then puts them on the field to play and win."

US Air Force handout photo of two F-22 stealth fighters

On a clear morning in May, a US Air Force L-39 Albatros plane took off from Niagara Falls International Airport over Lake Ontario, the cockpit filled with sensors. and computer processors that recorded the aircraft's performance over two hours of flight.

The plane flew counterclockwise around the lake as engineers from the US Army Research Center on the ground monitored every movement of the plane in an attempt to do something unprecedented like "design an aircraft that can fly and fight without a human pilot."

This exercise was an early step in the Air Combat Evolution (ACE) program, one of more than 600 US Department of Defense projects that integrate artificial intelligence into warfighting and air combat.

Billions of dollars are invested in military artificial intelligence

Global investment in artificial intelligence for military purposes was estimated at $6.3 billion in 2020, and is expected to reach $11.6 billion by 2025, with a compound annual growth rate of 13.1% during this period.

The growth of the artificial intelligence market in the military sector is attributed to increased investment in the development of integrated artificial intelligence systems, and an increasing reliance on cloud-based applications and high-performance computers, according to a recent report by MarketsAndMarkets.

And this year (2022), the US Department of Defense (the Pentagon) plans to spend nearly a billion dollars on technology related to artificial intelligence, as the US Navy is building unmanned ships that can stay at sea for months, and the army is developing a fleet of robotic combat vehicles, as well as Artificial intelligence is designed to improve logistics and intelligence gathering, as well as to develop wearable technology, sensors, and assistive robots, which the military calls the “Internet of Battlefield Things,” according to the American writer specializing in affairs. Military "Sue Halpern" in a report published by "The NewYorker" platform recently .

In this context, Halpern quoted Paul Schifferle, vice president of aviation research at Calspan, which is involved in the ACE project, as saying, “Algorithms are already working well in managing aircraft flight, and the first autopilot system was in service. 1914, and a number of current military technologies, such as underwater mine detectors and laser-guided bombs, are “autonomous” once launched by humans, but this does not compare to the complexity of a real air battle, which we strive to achieve in the period The coming...the production of artificial intelligence capable of fighting in an air battle with its full complexity."

Partnership between artificial intelligence and humans

The writer asserts that the combat aircraft equipped with artificial intelligence can carry out more tight combat courses and maneuvers, bear greater risks, and obtain better filming shots than human pilots, but the goal of the “ICE” program is to transform the role of the pilot, not to abolish it completely, and according to the program scheme. There will be a partnership relationship between the AI ​​and the human pilot who will monitor what the AI ​​is doing, and intervene when necessary.

According to the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Technology, the fighter jet with autonomous features would allow pilots to become "battle managers", directing teams of drones "like a soccer coach who selects team members and then puts them on the field to play and win."

Fewer people, more machines

ICE is part of a broader effort to "decompose our forces" into smaller, less expensive units, in other words, using fewer people and more troops, said Stacey Pettigon, director of the defense program at the Center for a New American Security. Consumable machines. In the case of air combat, Pettiguen said, "These much smaller autonomous aircraft can be combined in unexpected ways to overwhelm adversaries with their complexity and thus defeat them...and if any of them are shot down, it's not a huge loss," Halpern said in his report.

Returning to the experience of the L-39 that flew 20 sorties over Lake Ontario, each flight gave engineers and computer scientists the information they needed to build a model of its flight dynamics under different conditions.

Like self-driving cars, drones use sensors to identify differences between the outside world and encrypted information stored in their maps, and combat algorithms must take into account the surrounding environment and its expected effects on the plane, as the plane flies differently depending on the different altitudes it will fly. It, as well as the angles of flight, and the same applies to flying on hot days versus cold days, or if it carries an additional fuel tank or missiles equipped for launch, all of this must be taken into account by the algorithm, as the writer mentioned.

"Most of the time, the plane flies straight and flat, but when it comes to air battles, it's different, and the plane's flight and performance depend on the flight angles, speed and altitude, and because the flight is three-dimensional," said Phil Chu - an electrical engineer who works as a scientific advisor to the "ICE" program. Speed ​​is more important, if the plane is flying slowly and you move the joystick in one direction, you will get a certain amount of response, but if it is flying very fast and you move the stick the same way, you will get a completely different reaction.”

Problems that need solving

In 2024, if the ICE program goes according to plan, 4 L-39s equipped with artificial intelligence will participate in a direct battle in the sky over Lake Ontario. To this end, dozens of academic research centers and private companies have been enlisted, each working in and solving one of the following two areas: one, how to make an airplane fly and fight alone, and two, how to convince human pilots to trust AI.

In this context, said Robert Work, Deputy Secretary of Defense during the administration of former US President Barack Obama, who pushed the Pentagon to pursue next-generation technologies, "If the pilot does not have confidence, the human will always monitor the artificial intelligence, and say I should take charge." This is exactly the kind of problem that is being dealt with now, but the future looks full of promise for cooperation between humans and machines in all fields and fields.