Introduction to Top Gun AI
At Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, a test bed for a new kind of air force, Major Trent McMullen is a fighter pilot learning to fly alongside the XQ-58, a drone piloted by artificial intelligence. Think of it as “Top Gun AI.” McMullen flew the chase for several missions with it and reported back and forth with the autonomy on board. Maneuvering next to an AI-piloted drone takes a bit of getting used to: "As humans, we fly very smoothly, but it can make it a little bit squishier than a human pilot," McMullen admitted. "It might be a little rougher, but there is no one on board."
The XQ-58 Drone
The XQ-58 takes off like a rocket, but a full-scale model took off from a runway for the first time in August. An XQ-58A AI pilot drone takes off, showcasing its capabilities. The XQ-58 is capable of intercepting an enemy aircraft, and McMullen said the tasks assigned to AI could be to intercept an enemy aircraft: "So we were able to give it some of the basic blocking and attacking of dogfighting, which is what we as human pilots also train on when we first get to fly," he said.
AI-Piloted F-16
An AI-piloted F-16 has already won in a limited dogfight against an experienced fighter pilot. Top Gun AI rewires other F-16s for more realistic combat. These aircraft still have a cockpit and a pilot who can engage the plug-and-play AI system and then remain on board as a safety pilot. "So once the AI moves on, the hands come off?" McMullen was asked. “Yes, they will monitor the system and be ready to take over immediately,” McMullen said. "But we will also have real live aircraft to fight against. These jets will be piloted by real fighter pilots who will do their best to outperform the AI."
A Revolution in the Air Force
Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Clint Hinote says it’s a revolution born of necessity: "The Air Force has been so long that it hasn’t had to change. Now it has to change, and it’s trying to figure out how." Change because the Chinese Air Force, which recently unveiled its latest jet fighters and its own AI drone, could be more than a match for the US Air Force. According to Hinote: "If we have to fight China, we’ll probably do it in their front yard, and that means they’ll have to carry many, many more things than we can because it’s so far away." The war games aren’t very good, and the US is losing.
The Role of AI Drones
The Air Force is counting on AI drones to bring even the odds by flying an aircraft that a human pilot won’t do. McMullen said: "The big thing with artificial intelligence is the ability to handle large amounts of data. A human in a complex air combat environment, there is simply no way to absorb everything. Artificial intelligence can potentially take in all the data information and then process it very quickly and then make real-time decisions." AI drones will be about half the length of a manned jet fighter and a quarter the cost – $20 million to $30 million each.
The Future of AI-Piloted Aircraft
General Adrian Spain, head of Air Combat Command, is drawing up plans to operate AI pilot drones in addition to manned aircraft. "You told them to go up front and carry out an attack on a complex series of targets, and that’s what they’re going to do," Spain said. The air force expects to have 150 AI-piloted aircraft by the end of the decade and eventually up to 1,000. Hinote said: "You could buy more planes, put them in the field and still not break the bank. The key would be that you don’t have to bring the human operator home. You can actually take more risk."
Life or Death Decisions
So, will AI make life or death decisions? “Absolutely not,” Spain said. "Absolutely not. The human controlling the AI will make the life and death decisions." At least for now. Hinote said: "Increasingly, militaries around the world, including the US military, are being pressured to give the machines more leeway to make these life-or-death decisions." Including the ability to shoot alone? "The United States military is investing in experimentation that you would need to be able to produce the types of platforms that could fire themselves if you gave them that option," Hinote said.
Trusting AI
If adversaries let AI make these decisions, what happens? "I think they do this at their own risk," Spain said. "Because AI can be fooled, AI can be overwhelmed. It can give you false results. We’ve seen that AI can hallucinate. So it’s not a guarantee of success. It’s a guarantee that it will do something quickly." With Top Gun AI, pilots use repetition over and over again, test flight after test flight, simulation after simulation, to build that trust. When asked whether he would prefer to go into combat with a human wingman or an AI wingman, McMullen replied: "If we’re talking about the threats of tomorrow, if I can send a raw asset into a high-risk environment, I would rather do that than send a human pilot."
