Artificial intelligence (AI) has undeniably become a staple for both small and big-name tech companies involved either with HPC machines, Machine Learning, or both. As such, it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that the medium has been used in US military applications. Case in point, the US Air Force (USAF) and its current plans of pitting an autonomous AI-piloted fighter jet against a human pilot.
The revelation came in a discussion between the Mitchell Institute and Lieutenant General Jack Shanahan, who is the director of the Pentagon’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Centre. During the discussion, Shanahan mentioned that the USAF is aiming towards having an autonomous fighter jet ready by July 2021. To be pitted against a human pilot in what would be “some sort of air-to-air” battle.
As we mentioned, matching an autonomous AI entity against a human subject or has become a commonplace scenario in the last several years, as well as other non-competitive applications. Back in 2017, Google’s AlphaGo Deepmind AI beat Ke Jie, who is rated as one of the best Go players in the world, at his own game.
NVIDIA is also an example of a company that uses AI for non-competitive applications; the GPU brand has used its Deep Neural Network (DNN) AI servers in the development of automotive AI and, its DLSS anti-aliasing technology.
In any case, it’s clear that the world won’t be seeing any action from the USAF’s AI initiative until next year. Having said that, General Shanahan did seem confident in the video discussion that his military branch’s AI would definitely win the upcoming dogfight, hands down.
(Source: Air Force Magazine via Techspot, Hot Hardware // Image: Techspot)
