Air Force to Test Fighter Drone Against Human [F-35?] Pilot

[spazsinbad]

Air Force to Test Fighter Drone Against Human Pilot [Best Read at Source]
04 Jun 2020 Rachel S. Cohen

"Air Force researchers are designing an autonomous aircraft that can take down a manned plane in air-to-air combat, with the goal of pitting the two against each other in July 2021. Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan, head of the Pentagon’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, said the Air Force Research Laboratory team is pushing the boundaries of what the military can build, compared to the aircraft that already fill the service’s squadrons.

“[Team leader Steve Rogers] is probably going to have a hard time getting to that flight next year … when the machine beats the human,” Shanahan said during a June 4 Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies event. “If he does it, great.”

The AFRL team launched its pursuit of an unmanned, AI-driven fighter jet in 2018, aiming to show promise within 18 months. Inside Defense reported in May 2018 the “big moonshot” would first insert machine-learning technology into a less-advanced plane like an F-16 before trying it in a newer jet like an F-35 or F-22.

“Our human pilots, the really good ones, have a couple thousand hours of experience,” Rogers told Inside Defense. “What happens if I can augment their ability with a system that can have literally millions of hours of training time? … How can I make myself a tactical autopilot so in an air-to-air fight, this system could help make decisions on a timeline that humans can’t even begin to think about?”...

...But while the Pentagon’s AI work is picking up steam, Shanahan cautioned that not everything happening with the futuristic technology is a success story. The military should adopt the lessons the self-driving car industry has learned, he said—and heed its warnings.

“There is no level four, fully autonomous vehicle out on the roads today,” he said, despite several companies investing billions of dollars in the idea. “On the other hand, that’s a decade worth of experience we should be pulling into the military because they’ve learned so much.”"

Source: https://www.airforcemag.com/air-force-t ... man-pilot/

Aerospace Nation: Lt Gen "Jack" Shanahan, Director, Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, DOD CIO
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAA0HdB7zqE [57 minutes 04 Jun 2020]