NOS News•today, 9:37 PM
US Air Force chief Frank Kendall has successfully flown an F-16 controlled by artificial intelligence (AI).
Kendall flew yesterday in a modified F-16 that can fly independently. The news was only shared afterwards so as not to endanger the flight.
Last year, the Pentagon announced that tests had been conducted for some time with the aircraft, called Vista (Variable Stability In-flight Simulator Test Aircraft) has got. In test flights, AI performed defensive and offensive maneuvers at high speed against other human-flown F-16s. There were two pilots on board the AI device who could intervene if necessary.
Fights
The use of AI goes beyond the autopilot that has been used for years in civil and military aviation. It can take over functions, such as flying to programmed locations or, in certain cases, landing an aircraft. But the Vista can fly in combat situations without pilot intervention.
The AP news agency was present at the test. It was held above Edwards Air Force Base, an air base in the Mojave Desert in California. According to the news agency, the plane carrying Kendall performed maneuvers for about an hour at speeds of more than 880 kilometers per hour.
An F-16 flown by pilots was also deployed. According to AP, the planes raced and rotated around each other within a radius of 300 meters “in an attempt to force their opponent into vulnerable positions.”
View images here from four months ago of the aircraft flying independently (with two pilots on board to intervene):
After landing, the air force boss stepped out with a grin, according to the news agency. He said he saw enough during the flight to trust the still-developing AI system to make decisions about launching weapons during combat.
Kendall is an outspoken advocate for the use of AI in the military. He announced last month that he wanted to fly in an F-16 that performed combat maneuvers with AI. “It is a safety risk not to deploy it. We have to have it at this time,” he said yesterday after the plane landed again.
Life and death
Opponents mainly point to the risks of using AI. For example, the International Red Cross states that the main argument against use is “that there are widespread and serious concerns about leaving life and death decisions to sensors and software.”
According to the Red Cross, people “have moral agency that guides their decisions and actions, even in conflicts where decisions to kill are somewhat normalized.” The use of autonomous weapons is “an immediate cause for concern that requires an urgent response from international politics,” the aid agency said.
Switch off
Last year, an American expert warned of unforeseen circumstances when using artificial intelligence on the battlefield. As a thought experiment, he suggested that an AI drone could choose to eliminate hesitant clients in order to achieve final victory.
Nevertheless, the US Air Force is investing heavily in the use of artificial intelligence for warfare. Kendall expects that the aircraft can be lighter and cheaper than the current expensive manned fighter aircraft and states that not keeping up with the development of AI warfare means going backwards. “We have to keep running and we have to run fast,” he says.
The Air Force wants to have an AI-driven fleet of more than a thousand unmanned combat aircraft. The first should be in use by 2028.
‘China is lagging behind’
According to the developers of Vista, there is no other country in the world with a fighter plane that uses AI in this way.
The software learns from millions of flights made in simulators, then applies that knowledge in the air and after the flight that knowledge is then processed by artificial intelligence to learn more. According to the developers, a country like China, for example, already has simulators with AI, but there is no indication that that country is already conducting tests outside the simulator.
