AI co-pilots US Air Force spy plane for the first time – The Next Web

An AI system has helped control aUS military aircraft for the first time ever, the Air Force announced on Wednesday.

TheARTUalgorithm flew alongside a pilot aboard a U-2 Dragon Lady spy plane during a test flight on December 15. The systemtook control of sensor employment and tactical navigation on the aircraft, while the pilot flew the plane.

Together, they flew a reconnaissance mission during a simulated missile strike, the Air Force said in a statement. ARTUs primary responsibility was finding enemy launchers while the pilot was on the lookout for threatening aircraft, both sharing the U-2s radar.

[Read: An AI just embarrassed the US Air Force in a virtual dogfight]

ARTU is a modified version of the open-source algorithm Zero, which has been used to defeat humans at games such as Go and Chess.

The Air Force used more than half a million simulated training iterations to enable the algorithm to manipulate the planes sensor. After take-off, it determined whether to focus the radar on finding missiles or protecting the aircraft.

TheAir Combat Commands U-2 Federal Laboratory developed the tech to be transferrable to other systems, answering the National Defense Strategys call to invest in autonomy. The ultimate aim is to give theUS military a technological edge over rivals such as China.

We know that in order to fight and win in a future conflict with a peer adversary, we must have a decisive digital advantage, said air Force Chief of Staff General Charles Q. Brown Jr. AI will play a critical role in achieving that edge, so Im incredibly proud of what the team accomplished.

The test follows reports that an Iranian nuclear scientist was assassinated by an AI-powered machine gun. Lethal autonomous weapons are rapidly moving from science fiction to reality.

Published December 17, 2020 17:50 UTC

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AI co-pilots US Air Force spy plane for the first time - The Next Web