The US Air Force revealed its own, rather more elaborate, AI dogfighter in 2023. It was demonstrated flying an F-16 jet in combat manoeuvres.
This flight was the culmination of years of work aimed at creating an AI that could beat a living pilot.
Eight US AI companies went head to head in 2020 during a three-day competition known as the AlphaDogfight Trials Event. This involved simulated online dogfights between the competing AI programs and an experienced USAF fighter pilot.
The winning program beat the pilot repeatedly, and Brett Darcy of US defence shop Shield AI was on the three-strong team that built it.
He remembers the AlphaDogfight event vividly. “The competitors ranged from the big boys like [defence giant] Lockheed Martin down to us.”
They started out by pitching their AI pilot against a target flying straight and level, “a sitting duck” says Mr Darcy.
They progressed to fighting other AI pilots, getting the AI to think about tactics. Certain rules, such as the length of each dogfight (usually five minutes) and the maximum speed they could attain were set.
But there was no requirement to abide by USAF doctrine. “Our AI used a head-on merge with the target as an opportunity to fire guns,” he says.
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