- The finale of the AlphaDogfight trials took place Thursday at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland
- The bot was made by small Maryland company Heron Systems
- Human was a Weapons School instructor pilot known by his call-sign ‘Banger’
- AI pilot virtually shot down the human pilot in five rounds of mock air combat
- The victory of machine over man raises questions about the future of air-to-air combat as the USAF hopes AI can help the military react faster to enemies
Rachel Sharp – Daily Mail Aug 21, 2020
An AI pilot has beaten a US Air Force F16 Top Gun in the first ever simulator dogfight competition run by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to determine if man can beat machine in the sky.
The human pilot, a Weapons School instructor pilot known only by his call-sign ‘Banger’, was annihilated by his artificial intelligent opponent in the showdown at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, Thursday.
The AI pilot in a simulation Viper fighter jet virtually shot down the human pilot in five rounds of mock air combat, showing the human brain is no match for the technology’s aggressive tactics.
The event marked the finale of the AlphaDogfight trials – a DARPA project launched last year to pit human fighter pilots against machine and that runs alongside the wider Air Combat Evolution (ACE) program, which focuses on exploring how AI can be used to help military operations.
An AI pilot has beaten a US Air Force F16 Top Gun in the first ever simulator dogfight competition run by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to determine if man can beat machine in the sky. Pictured the simulation Thursday. Click to enlarge
The dogfight was broadcast live Thursday and showed Banger sat in a simulation vehicle.
Footage of the combat shows the experienced human fighter pilot avoiding the first shot from his AI opponent and trying to circle back around.
Banger is heard raising concerns about the bot’s aggressive tactics.
‘The standard things we do as fighter pilots aren’t working,’ he says.
The bot then fires three times at the human pilot, striking him each time in quick succession.
The victory comes as the robot, made by small Maryland company Heron Systems, opted for more aggressive tactics and head-on gun attacks compared to typical human combat.
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The F16 started service 42yrs ago, just saying. Sure, it had upgrades. To be fair, the US made a massive mistake in the Korean War, US planes could not dogfight with Soviet-built Migs and today the US has made the same massive mistake. The F22 and F35 are stealth, heavy, slow & slower in close combat, their range & weapons load are affected by the fact that all systems need to be inboard for stealth. It is no good having an AI pilot when the Russians (and prob Chinese) can see your stealth planes and also jam their systems rendering them utterly useless.
How would AI have done in a F-35? Couldn’t get off the ground, maybe?
@Carl Jones The whole point of AI piloted planes is they can replace Man as the operator, which also means it can act independent of any outside communication and follow the mission through.
The enemy (be it Russia or China) have no more means of jamming the AI than they do of jamming a person. If they could disable the aircraft through jamming, then all jets would be ineffective as even those piloted by people would get shut down in the skies.
But given every military vehicle is guarded against outside inteference, that is not possible, even an EMP would not disable most military vehicles as they are shielded for such events.
Now this test is clearly biased to gain the contract for the Jewish sounding company (Heron… Could you get any more Jewish!) Had it been a genuine fair trial, they would have indeed used an actual Top Gun pilot, not some has been former pilot who has not flown a jet for decades, just teaches from his class room and over the communications to pilots in the sky etc.
They would have also put both in identical planes, I am confident they had different versions of the F16 to give the AI the upper hand, with anyone looking on unable to tell the slight advantage by say the modern power plant vs the earlier generations.
Also they coded the AI to be aggressive, this would go against the AI once the Person is aware of this, seems to me they just caught an old dog off guard and he panicked not having been flying for years, had no way to react to the speed of the AI when he was rusty AF.
Again a current Top Gun would have adapted to the situation 100x faster and came up with a plan to use the AI’s aggressiveness against it.
But the whole point is moot as the AI would never pilot an outdated F16 in the real world, they would be placed inside a purpose built unmanned aircraft, which would have vastly different capabilities than the current jets that are controlled by Man.
For all we know they emphasis could be placed on long range engagement like the F22 and F35 are designed for, then that would make them sitting ducks at closer range to super manouverable aircraft like the Sukhoi or Mig.
If they are designed to be dog fighters, then they would be vulnerable at range from hypersonic missiles (In reality such missiles are a threat to every type of aircraft given you would have milliseconds to react to an incoming missile at mach 5+)
Either way they can and will be just as effective as Man powered aircraft given the fact they will always have to trade off range or dog fight capabilities.
Heron is a border reiver name!
OMG !! Tom Cruise is shot down ! I’ll loose my sleep over this ??
Mojo Jojo: you miss the point by a country mile. AI or pilot, the systems on the plane can be compromised or made inoperative. Russian planes buzzed a US ship in the Black Sea repeatedly. This US ship could not lock-on to the Russian jets because they jammed all the systems on the ship. I can’t remember the name of the US software used on US ships, but it is used on US planes as well. Russian planes have buzzed several US carriers… as in, the carriers and their massive escort never saw the Russian jets. Many US naval crew on that Black Sea ship quit the US Navy. It doesn’t matter if a plane has AI if the systems are jammed, the systems are jammed. As to stealth, it is redundant in respect of Russia, China, and probably Iran. IMHO, the US has screwed up with its core military hardware. All this fuss over Huawei, when US military equipment is full of Chinese made chips.
@Carl Jones Have I missed the point or are you over exaggerating stuff?
Buzzing a carrier group is rather easy, given they have radar which is ineffective for low flying craft over moving water, it makes it nigh on impossible for them to detect any low flying craft, be they stealth or not.
So unless they have their early warning jets up, to support the group, they will miss any such flights always.
Which goes to show how redundant naval craft are in modern warfare, missiles are cheap as chips compared to the cost of manpower and money per ship, yet a few could sink any modern naval vessel for the risk to one aircraft and pilot vs hundreds of seamen.
But as I originally stated, they did not diable any systems on the aircraft or even the naval vessels, it is just a provokation and the US would be fools to shoot down a aircraft that would result in the loss of naval vessels and lives. They know that hence why they do not engage when they finally do have a chance once the aircraft break away from sea level to buzz the naval craft.
How many times have Iran provoked the Us with speed boats, but have you once read of the US engaging Iranian boats? Just all talk…
So once again, no Russia does not possess the ability to jam any aircraft beyond maybe unshielded civilian aircraft, if it was possible to defeat a jet with a simple jamming beam, then there would no longer be combat aircraft as everyone would just jam the skys of a battlefield to prevent any planes entering.
It is possible to interfere with radar, gps and other outside signals, but as for the plane itself, they can operate as normal, even if a nuke went off and the EMP hit them, they are shielded from such effects.