AI Beats a Fighter Pilot in a Virtual Dogfight
An artificial intelligence programmed to fly fighter jets has defeated several air combat experts in a simulation, according to a paper published in the Journal of Defense Management. The AI, called ALPHA, was built by Psibernetix, Inc. with assistance from the Air Force Research Laboratory.
ALPHA's purpose was to be better than highly trained fighter pilots, and so far it appears up to the task. The AI has gone up against its predecessor, the AFRL's previous AI program, and a series of human opponents. It emerged victorious each time.
One of those opponents, Gene Lee, is a retired Air Force colonel with extensive flight experience both as a pilot and an instructor. Lee is an expert both at flying and at fighting AIs, having fought against and helped to train AI pilots since the 1980s. Before ALPHA, he says, he could handily beat any robo-pilot. Not anymore.
"Until now, an AI opponent simply could not keep up with anything like the real pressure and pace of combat-like scenarios," said Lee in an interview with UC Magazine. On ALPHA, he says, "This may be artificial intelligence, but it represents a real challenge."
Lee failed to score a single kill during his many matchups with ALPHA and the AI shot him out of the sky in every attempt. Even when ALPHA was handicapped with a slower, less maneuverable plane it still outperformed Lee and every other pilot who opposed it.
ALPHA's success is reminiscent of the AI AlphaGo, Google DeepMind's program that crushed the human champion of the game Go back in March. But while AlphaGo used a supercomputer to achieve its results, ALPHA runs on a standard PC, making it much more efficient in terms of computing power.
"ALPHA shows incredible potential, with a combination of high performance and low computational cost that is a critical enabling capability for complex coordinated operations by teams of unmanned aircraft," says a lead engineer at AFRL.
For now, ALPHA is still in the testing phase. Someday ALPHA or an AI like it could fly in real combat roles for the Air Force; Psibernetix sees it as an AI wingman for human pilots. "ALPHA could continuously determine the optimal ways to perform tasks commanded by its manned wingman, as well as provide tactical and situational advice to the rest of its flight," says Kelly Cohen, aerospace professor at the University of Cincinnati.
Source: UC Magazine
