US artificial intelligence fighters are competitive

Insider:

Last month, two US Air Force fighter jets battled in the skies above California in an intense dogfight. Air-to-air combat training isn't unusual, but what made this event strange is that one of the planes didn't have a human pilot at the stick.

The fighter, flown by an artificial intelligence agent with the Air Force secretary riding in the back, squared off in a dogfight with a manned F-16, demonstrating the rapid progress of the Air Force and Defense Advanced Research Project Agency's AI fighter pilot program.

An Air Force commander and the CEO behind the company that developed the AI, Shield AI, told Business Insider the moment was a monumental step in the program's development.

The Air Force spoke highly of it as well. Col. James Valpiani, Commandant of the Air Force Test Pilot School, told BI "Secretary [Frank] Kendall's flight marks an important milestone" for the program and speaks to growing "confidence in the state of combat autonomy."

Kendall hopped in the X-62A Variable In-flight Simulation Test Aircraft (VISTA), the Air Force's highly modified F-16, at Edwards Air Force Base on May 2 and flew for about an hour, "witnessing several AI agents as they autonomously maneuvered the X-62 against a manned F-16 in dogfighting engagements," Valpiani said.

Throughout the testing of this emerging technology, the Air Force has been impressed by how quickly the AI can learn new information and change based on hoards of data and flight experiences.

"This interactive process allows the team to rapidly mature AI agents, often generating dramatic performance improvements from one test flight to the next," Valpiani.

Across the Pentagon, defense officials and leadership are pursuing affordable, mass AI capabilities at a breakneck pace. It's been described as a major element of great power competition with China, an arms race of sorts to keep the US at the apex ahead of future conflict.

Kendall himself called his flight in May "a transformational moment," marking the transition from when autonomous air-to-air combat had only been "a distant dream" to becoming reality.
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We may be close to a point where robotic aircraft will be used to attack the enemy or in defense of the US.  The robotic aircraft could be also used in coordination with manned aircraft.

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