The United States Air Force has made a strong push into artificial intelligence (AI), which represents one of the most significant advances in military aviation since the advent of stealth in the early 1990s. The service is preparing for an AI-enabled fleet of over 1,000 autonomous airplanes, the first of which will be in operation by 2028, despite the fact that the technology is not yet completely matured.
It seemed appropriate that the duel happened at Edwards Air Force Base, a huge desert complex where the military has developed its greatest top-secret aeronautical innovations and where Chuck Yeager broke the speed of sound. A new generation of test pilots is training artificial intelligence (AI) agents to fly in combat within top-secret simulations and structures with many levels of cover against monitoring.
Kendall came to witness AI in action and to publicly express his confidence in the technology’s potential for use in air warfare.
“It’s a security risk not to have it. At this point, we have to have it,” Kendall stated in an interview with The Associated Press. Because of operational security concerns, the AP and NBC were allowed to see the secret flight, provided they would not report on it until it was over.
With the AI-controlled F-16, named Vista, Kendall was able to do quick maneuvers at over 550 miles per hour, applying pressure to his body that was five times more than the force of gravity. It was almost a head-to-head match against another human-piloted F-16 as they raced to within a thousand feet of one another, swerving and looping to attempt to push their rival into weak spots.
After the one-hour trip, Kendall emerged from the cockpit beaming. He claimed to have observed enough throughout his flight to be confident in this AI’s capacity to make decisions about using force in combat.
That concept met with a lot of objections. More limitations on AI’s usage are being sought by arms control specialists and humanitarian groups, who are gravely afraid that AI may someday be able to launch bombs that kill people on its own without additional human input.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has issued a warning, saying, “There are widespread and serious concerns about ceding life-and-death decisions to sensors and software.” “An urgent, international political response is required to address autonomous weapons, as they are a cause for immediate concern.”
Security, affordability, and strategic capabilities are the main drivers behind the military’s transition to AI-enabled aircraft. For example, advances by both sides in electronic warfare, space, and air defense systems will make today’s Air Force fleet of costly, manned aircraft vulnerable if the United States and China were to engage in combat. In addition to rapidly surpassing the United States in size, China is building up a fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles.
When weapons are utilized, Kendall said that human oversight of the system will always exist.
In future war situations, the United States will be able to breach enemy defenses without putting pilots in grave danger by using hordes of unmanned American aircraft to launch an advance strike. However, money is a major factor in the change.
Production delays and cost overruns of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which is expected to cost the Air Force $1.7 trillion, continue to be a hindrance.
Kendall stated that the future belongs to smaller, less expensive AI-controlled unmanned aircraft.
No other nation in the world, according to Vista’s military operators, has an AI plane like it. The software aboard the jet learns from millions of data points in a simulator before putting its conclusions to the test in real flights. After that, the AI analyzes the real-world performance data in the simulator to gain further knowledge.
China also possesses AI, but doesn’t seem to have figured out how to conduct tests outside of a simulator. Additionally, Vista’s test pilots stated that some lessons are best learnt in the air, much like a junior officer learning tactics for the first time.
Chief test pilot Bill Gray stated that “it’s all guesswork” until you actually fly. “And before you have effective systems, the longer it takes you to figure that out.”
Only around two dozen AI-controlled dogfight flights have occurred since Vista’s September 2023 debut. But certain AI versions being tested on Vista are now outperforming human pilots in air-to-air combat because the algorithms are picking up new skills so rapidly with every interaction.
The pilots here at the base know that in some ways they may be molding future generations of pilots or training their successors.
However, they also state that if the United States did not have own a fleet of its own, they would not want to be in the air against an enemy who had AI-controlled aircraft.
“We have to keep running. And we have to run fast,” Kendall remarked.
