An AI-powered fighter jet took the Air Force’s leader for a historic ride. Here's what that means for war.

With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of U.S. airpower. But the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence, not a human pilot. And riding in the front seat was Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall.

AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning for an AI-enabled fleet of more than 1,000 unmanned warplanes, the first of them operating by 2028.

  • @j4k3English
    6•4 months ago

    These don’t scare me as much as the little ones do in the grand scheme of things.

    I think we will see a 90% effective kill for $1k within the next decade. Start making your >> /dev/null and random image noise camouflage soon… ‘nobody here but a bad pixel’