US military takes aim at 2024 for human-versus-AI aircraft dogfights. Have we lost that loving feeling for Top Gun?
- Reference: 1600066874
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/09/14/ai_us_dogfights/
- Source link:
Although the experiment is a battle between brains and binary, it’s not aimed at replacing military personnel altogether: computers will be used for low-priority work.
“To be clear, AI’s role in our lethality is to support human decision-makers not replace them. We see AI as a tool to free up resources, time, and manpower so our people can focus on higher priority tasks and arrive at the decision point whether in a lab or on the battlefield faster and more precise than the competition,” he [1]said last week at a virtual symposium held by the Pentagon’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center.
DARPA announced its Air Combat Evolution (ACE) program last year, and held a [2]virtual competition between a real pilot and AI system last month in a flight simulator. The machines thrashed the humans 5-0 in the limited settings.
Don’t believe the GPT-3 hype
The Guardian newspaper was criticized for publishing an opinion piece constructed solely from cherry-picked sentences from reams of text generated by OpenAI’s [3]GPT-3 model .
Headlined "A robot wrote this entire article. Are you scared yet, human?” the [4]article is written from the perspective of a machine trying to explain to humans that AI isn't going to stamp out humanity. On the face of it, the piece is impressive: the grammar is good, and it comfortably glides through history, philosophy, and technology. Are our days as vultures bashing out prose for the masses to tight deadlines numbered?
Well, read the note at the end of the article. You’ll see that the whole thing was put together by a human editor, who copied and pasted sentences from eight 500-word essays composed by the GPT-3 software. The op-ed was not generated all in one go.
Critics were quick to [5]pour cold water on the hype . Full Fact, a fact-checking org in the UK, found a [6]factual error , too. GPT-3 claimed the word robot originated from the Greek language, when in fact it’s technically Czech. Tsk tsk, it's not like you'd catch one of us humans maeking any erros.
New European AI PhD programme
The European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELLIS), set up to help Europe remain competitive in the field of AI and machine learning, is now funding PhDs at various universities.
“The program supports excellent PhDs across Europe by giving them access to leading research through boot camps, summer schools and workshops of the ELLIS programs,” it said. “Every PhD student is supervised by one ELLIS fellow/scholar and one ELLIS member from a different country and conducts a one year exchange at the other location.”
You can read more about it [7]here .
Portland goes nuclear on facial tech
The latest facial-recognition system ban passed in Portland, Oregon, is the strictest one in any US city yet. AI cameras will not be allowed in any public or private places, such as stores, banks or rail stations.
The new rules, described in two separate ordinances, were passed by Portland City Council last week. The first one bars public entities from acquiring facial-recognition services using them in spaces managed and owned by the city, and goes into effect immediately. The second one prevents private spaces that are open for public use from being surveiled from January 2021.
There are some exceptions, however. For example, city council staff are allowed to use the technology to unlock their own smartphones or tablets at work.
“We must protect the privacy of Portland’s residents and visitors, first and foremost. These ordinances are necessary until we see more responsible development of technologies that do not discriminate against Black, Indigenous and other people of color,” [8]said Mayor Ted Wheeler. ®
Get our [9]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.defense.gov/Explore/News/Article/Article/2340972/esper-says-artificial-intelligence-will-change-the-battlefield/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/21/ai_beats_f16_pilot/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/11/openai_gpt3_brainwashing/
[4] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/08/robot-wrote-this-article-gpt-3
[5] https://thenextweb.com/neural/2020/09/08/the-guardians-gpt-3-generated-article-is-everything-wrong-with-ai-media-hype/
[6] https://fullfact.org/news/the-distant-future-the-year-2000/
[7] https://ellis.eu/en/news/ellis-phd-program-call-for-applications
[8] https://www.portland.gov/wheeler/news/2020/9/9/city-council-approves-ordinances-banning-use-facial-recognition-technologies
[9] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: computers will be used for low-priority work
I wonder if any of them have read Fred Saberhagen's Berseker?
computers will be used for low-priority work
Like writing tedious lefty opinion pieces for the Grauniad. Trebles all round!
Re: computers will be used for low-priority work
Hah - I suppose you think humans generated QAnon
Re: computers will be used for low-priority work
That example was stitched together (by a human editor) from half-a dozen attempts by the AI.
maeking any erros.
I see what you did there.
Re: maeking any erros.
Known as Muphry's Law... ;)
A new missile race?
An attacking air force doesn't need to be good at dogfighting - just send in 1 more cheap drone than their fighters have missiles.
It'll be similar against ground defences.
The only defence is ensuring you have more missiles covering an area than they have drones.
I'm buying shares in missile manufacturers.
Re: A new missile race?
It was quite fascinating watching the AI vs Human dogfights. The scenario was limited to short range gunfights, and not sure if it included any damage modeling. Often the winner was heavily damaged in the initial encounter, so in reality whether they'd be able to keep flying, ie damage to control surfaces. Hopefully the next iteration would be more typical, ie a normal air superiority loadout & mission profile. I suspect the results would be the same. And then whether there'd be human vs AI drone, where the drone may have more offensive/defensive advantages as it doesn't have the meatware support systems onboard.
Re: A new missile race?
Bullets are cheaper than drones, we would just need a way to kill swarms of drones and the missiles can be kept for bigger fish.
For example, really good/AI aiming systems for turrets mounted rifles, shrapnel 'grenades', a big net, diversionary utilities c.f. chaff to shake drones off, outmaneouvering e.g. altitude etc etc
You won't eliminate dog fights, you'll just find other ways to fight before you get to that point, thats why soldiers still need hand to hand combat training.
Whether this will actually be possible in 3 years is another question
GPT-3 - your call is important to us
> reams of text generated by OpenAI’s GPT-3 model.
I can just imagine some joker hooking up a text to speech box to this and connecting that to a call centre.
So instead of some plinkety-plonk music and occasional reminders of how important it is for customers to waste their lives on hold, we would be treated to computer generated speeches on the same topic.
training fighter AI
Training the AI to fight a small manoeuvrable jet by playing Afterburner is genius. I so want to see that one in action.
Super Positioning and Veering into the Virtual Singularity Fields of Future Endeavour
Although the experiment is a battle between brains and binary, it’s not aimed at replacing military personnel altogether:
:-) Oh please, you cannot be serious if binary is successfully overwhelming.
And it opens up yet another crack hacking front too for both before and after the fact, should it not be a fantastic fiction, for ...... well, would they be brainiacs?
And having had a moment or two to further think on that before posting, such a crack hacking front opens up even whenever it is a fantastic fiction.
I shall now rest for a while and ponder on such be within the quantum communication realm, where a this is also a that and something else altogether different and entangling.
In the Wild Wacky West, that is Spooky at a Distance, DARPA/IARPA Military Industrial Complex territory ......... although only by virtue of Private Proprietary Intellectual Property Holder Participation. ........ which on Earth invariably revolves around Titans of Stock Markets which do not prove themselves to be Phantom Unicorns and Wannabe Caesars.
GPT-3 journalism
Rehashing content found elsewhere, while adding nothing original except one or two factual errors? Sounds like 90% of modern journalism to me. At least The Register is still better than that!
> The European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELLIS), set up to help Europe remain competitive in the field of AI and machine learning
That train left the station 25 years ago when Europe failed to produce a single global tech giant similar Google/Amazon/Baidu/Alibaba during the dotcom boom. Chickens coming home to roost...
[1]U.S. Marine Corps F-35Bs Are About To Go Aboard A British Carrier And They Might Be There To Stay
The UK government spent so much money building an aircraft carrier that it does not have enough money left to buy planes that they have to resort to "renting" out the space to the Americans.
[1] https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/36359/u-s-marine-corps-f-35bs-are-about-to-go-aboard-a-british-carrier-and-they-might-be-there-to-stay
computers will be used for low-priority work
Well at least they can't drink.