In a triumph of AI, scientists have built a flight simulator that can consistently beat the best human pilots - even when the humans are given superior [virtual] aircraft. What’s more, the AI used only a $500 low-end consumer grade computer.
This is a significant advance in technology. It’s sure to be replicated by military powers all over the world, and I’ll go out on a limb and say that it greatly increases the odds that one day human fighter pilots will be mostly [if not completely] replaced by drones.
How is this done? Well, first let’s talk about how modern “dogfights" work. Basically, they don’t - and they really haven’t since Vietnam. Aircraft combat today has a 100-mile range and is called “Beyond Visual Range” combat. In fact, United States General Normal Schwarzkopf was quoted as saying “During the first three days of the war, when control of the air was greatly contested, what it basically amounted to was the Iraqi aircraft would take off, pull up their landing gear, and blow up.”
That said, air combat is something that can be essentially be reduced to a math problem. There are only so many possible changes in speed and direction that a pilot can make, and BVR combat becomes a math problem. In other words, you want to get within range, fire a missile, and get out in a way that makes the other guy go boom without your plane going boom. Computers are better at such math than people are.
I would say that this does raise a very legitimate moral/legal/ethical debate about whether/how to let machines make kill decisions - and despite my personal preferences, I could see legitimate arguments on both sides of the issue. I wouldn’t trust this machine to make any sort of decision on who to go to war with, and I don’t think it means that Skynet or the Singularity is imminent.
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