In a simulated dogfight, a US Air Force F-16 pilot will take on an AI opponent, and you can watch him live
A US Air Force pilot will take on an AI adversary in simulated dogfight next Thursday as part of DARPA 's final AlphaDogfight Trials competition.
Eight teams will compete during the three-day competition, pitting their AI algorithms against other virtual air combat programs to decide which one will go head-to - head with a seasoned F-16 pilot.
Interested viewers will register before the Monday deadline to watch the event live here.
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An experienced US Air Force F-16 pilot will do battle in a simulated dogfight with an artificial intelligence adversary next week, and it will be broadcast live to registered viewers.
The Agency for Advanced Research Projects in Defense (DARPA) runs its third and final AlphaDogfight competition from August 18 to August 20. During the case, AI algorithms from eight teams will participate in "simulated maneuvering of air combat within visual range, regarded colloquially as a dogfight," DARPA said in a recent press release.
Competitors flying their AI algorithms against five AI adversaries developed by the John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory will appear on day one. The second day will have teams competing against each other in digital space to decide which program on the final day of the competition will be battling a human pilot in aerial combat.
Those who are interested in watching the action live will register here Monday before the deadline. The final fight is set to go down on Thursday between 1:30 and 3:30.
Aurora Flight Sciences, EpiSys Scientific, Georgia Tech Research Institute, Heron Systems, Lockheed Martin, Perspecta Labs, PhysicsAI and SoarTech are among the eight teams involved.
In a statement, Col. Dan Javorsek, the program manager at DARPA 's Strategic Technology Office, said DARPA is "excited to see how the AI algorithms work against each other as well as a Weapons School-trained individual."
Those who are interested in watching the action live will register here Monday before the deadline. The final battle will go down on Thursday between 1:30 a.m. and 3:30 a.m. Last year, DARPA acknowledged that while AI can defeat humans in games like chess, there is no AI in nature that "will outduel a person in a high-speed , high-G dogfight in a fighter jet," but the agency is trying to change that, or at least push the ball forward.
The AlphaDogfight contests, the first and second of which took place in November and January respectively, are aimed at advancing the Air Combat Evolution (ACE) program of DARPA, the objective of which is teaming with human-machines.
"It was incredible to see how far, in less than a year, the teams have developed AI for autonomous dogfighting," said Javorsek recently.
Last year, Javorsek said that "we envisage a future where AI manages the split-second maneuvering during dogfights within the visual range, keeping pilots safer and more effective as they orchestrate vast numbers of unmanned systems into a web of overwhelming combat effects."
Commenting on the upcoming AI competition, he said in a recent interview that, because the AlphaDogfight Trials are about confidence, it doesn't matter who wins the dogfight, man or machine.
"If the AI champion wins the admiration of an F-16 pilot," he said, "we will have come one step closer to achieving successful human-machine teaming in air combat, which is the aim of the ACE programme."