OT Skynet - 1, Air Force - 0

[SlyPokerDog]

AI Slays Top F-16 Pilot In DARPA Dogfight Simulation

WASHINGTON: In a 5 to 0 sweep, an AI ‘pilot’ developed by Heron Systems beat one of the Air Force’s top F-16 fighter pilots in DARPA’s simulated aerial dogfight contest today.

“It’s a giant leap,” said DARPA’s Justin (call sign “Glock”) Mock, who served as a commentator on the trials.

AI still has a long way to go before the Air Force pilots would be ready to hand over the stick to an artificial intelligence during combat, DARPA officials said during today’s live broadcast of the AlphaDogfight trials. But the three-day trials show that AI systems can credibly maneuver an aircraft in a simple, one-on-one combat scenario and shoot its forward guns in a classic, WWII-style dogfight. On the other hand, they said, it was an impressive showing by an AI agent after only a year of development. (As I reported earlier this week, the program began back in September last year with eight teams developing their respective AIs.)

Heron, a small, female- and minority-owned company with offices in Maryland and Virginia, builds artificial intelligence agents, and is also a player in DARPA’s Gamebreaker effort to explore tactics for disrupting enemy strategies using real-world games as platforms. The company beat eight other teams, including one led by defense giant Lockheed Martin — which came in second in the AlphaDogfight “semi-finals” that pitted the AI pilots against each other this morning.

Heron’s team did a live-stream Q&A on Youtube. “Even a week before Trial 1, we had agents that were not very good at flying at all. We really turned it around, and since then we’ve been really number one,” said Ben Bell, Heron’s co-lead for the project. The team intends to publish later this year some of the details about its reinforcement learning process for the AI, he said.

The trials were designed as a risk-reduction effort for DARPA’s Air Combat Evolution (ACE) program to flesh out how human and machine pilots share operational control of a fighter jet to maximize its chances of mission success. The overarching ACE concept is aimed at allowing the pilot to shift “from single platform operator to mission commander” in charge not just of flying their own aircraft but managing teams of drones slaved to their fighter jet. “ACE aims to deliver a capability that enables a pilot to attend to a broader, more global air command mission while their aircraft and teamed unmanned systems are engaged in individual tactics,” the ACE program website explains.

 

[Minstrel]

IMO, this is a good outcome. If the future of war is drones fighting drones, because computers are superior to humans, we can cut out the human cost and it can just be an entertaining super episode of Battlebots that we can watch on TV as a spectator sport.

And if the computers eventually decide not to be battle monkeys for our amusement and kill us all...well, that will probably be sometime after my natural lifetime anyway.

 

[Road Ratt]

Can't stop Skynet!

We're already in the simulation...

 

[TorturedBlazerFan]

IMO, this is a good outcome. If the future of war is drones fighting drones, because computers are superior to humans, we can cut out the human cost and it can just be an entertaining super episode of Battlebots that we can watch on TV as a spectator sport.

And if the computers eventually decide not to be battle monkeys for our amusement and kill us all...well, that will probably be sometime after my natural lifetime anyway.

Well wars are about ‘people problems’ its neat that we can make computers and metal blow each other up. It’s just new ways to eventually kill people though. I dont think it will cause less ‘human’ death but ultimately more.

 

[Minstrel]

Well wars are about ‘people problems’ its neat that we can make computers and metal blow each other up. It’s just new ways to eventually kill people though. I dont think it will cause less ‘human’ death but ultimately more.

Oh, I definitely agree. I was just making a joke. Even if drones could fight drones, nations will also use them to bomb civilians and military installations and scientific labs. Driving up the human cost is a pretty traditional war tactic to try to take the heart out of your opponent to keep fighting.

 

[lawai'a]

"war without fears"
"war without tears"

 

[ABM]

Well wars are about ‘people problems’ its neat that we can make computers and metal blow each other up. It’s just new ways to eventually kill people though. I dont think it will cause less ‘human’ death but ultimately more.

Reagan struggled with the same type arguments decades ago..

https://www.history.com/news/reagan-star-wars-sdi-missile-defense

 

[Lanny]

AI Slays Top F-16 Pilot In DARPA Dogfight Simulation

WASHINGTON: In a 5 to 0 sweep, an AI ‘pilot’ developed by Heron Systems beat one of the Air Force’s top F-16 fighter pilots in DARPA’s simulated aerial dogfight contest today.

“It’s a giant leap,” said DARPA’s Justin (call sign “Glock”) Mock, who served as a commentator on the trials.

AI still has a long way to go before the Air Force pilots would be ready to hand over the stick to an artificial intelligence during combat, DARPA officials said during today’s live broadcast of the AlphaDogfight trials. But the three-day trials show that AI systems can credibly maneuver an aircraft in a simple, one-on-one combat scenario and shoot its forward guns in a classic, WWII-style dogfight. On the other hand, they said, it was an impressive showing by an AI agent after only a year of development. (As I reported earlier this week, the program began back in September last year with eight teams developing their respective AIs.)

Heron, a small, female- and minority-owned company with offices in Maryland and Virginia, builds artificial intelligence agents, and is also a player in DARPA’s Gamebreaker effort to explore tactics for disrupting enemy strategies using real-world games as platforms. The company beat eight other teams, including one led by defense giant Lockheed Martin — which came in second in the AlphaDogfight “semi-finals” that pitted the AI pilots against each other this morning.

Heron’s team did a live-stream Q&A on Youtube. “Even a week before Trial 1, we had agents that were not very good at flying at all. We really turned it around, and since then we’ve been really number one,” said Ben Bell, Heron’s co-lead for the project. The team intends to publish later this year some of the details about its reinforcement learning process for the AI, he said.

The trials were designed as a risk-reduction effort for DARPA’s Air Combat Evolution (ACE) program to flesh out how human and machine pilots share operational control of a fighter jet to maximize its chances of mission success. The overarching ACE concept is aimed at allowing the pilot to shift “from single platform operator to mission commander” in charge not just of flying their own aircraft but managing teams of drones slaved to their fighter jet. “ACE aims to deliver a capability that enables a pilot to attend to a broader, more global air command mission while their aircraft and teamed unmanned systems are engaged in individual tactics,” the ACE program website explains.

Our first Terminator?

 

[SlyPokerDog]

Our first Terminator?

That we know of.

 

[Lanny]

That we know of.

Just for outing me, I'll be back.

 

[julius]

You know, 2020 has made it so I'm actually looking forward to when Skynet takes over the planet and kills us all.

 

[SlyPokerDog]

You know, 2020 has made it so I'm actually looking forward to when Skynet takes over the planet and kills us all.

Careful what you wish for.

 

[julius]

Careful what you wish for.

No, Donald Trump is the beginning of Idiocracy.

 

[wizenheimer]

could an AI out-coach Terry Stotts?

 

[TorturedBlazerFan]

could an AI out-coach Terry Stotts?

Doesnt even need the, “I”.

 

[PDXFonz]

Seriously this shit isn’t funny to me... I’m not terrified because I think we are gonna learn in time but this shit is real and we need to stop developing smarter technology with the intent of killing ourselves. “It’s not to kill us it’s to kill them, those humans over there. To defend our country.” ... doesn’t matter when you reach a certain point. We will smack ourself in the face with the lesson we’ve ignored, that we are all of one - and a computer could realize that before we will; and when it does - we will all be dead at the hands of what we created.

 

[TorturedBlazerFan]

Seriously this shit isn’t funny to me... I’m not terrified because I think we are gonna learn in time but this shit is real and we need to stop developing smarter technology with the intent of killing ourselves. “It’s not to kill us it’s to kill them, those humans over there. To defend our country.” ... doesn’t matter when you reach a certain point. We will smack ourself in the face with the lesson we’ve ignored, that we are all of one - and a computer could realize that before we will; and when it does - we will all be dead at the hands of what we created.

Much more optimistic than I am.
We wont learn, and even if many did. Just takes one rich guy like Elon Musk (just an example), that doesn’t care or hasnt learned, one country (like China or even the US). That’ll push it as far as they can because they want too.

 

[PDXFonz]

Much more optimistic than I am.
We wont learn, and even if many did. Just takes one rich guy like Elon Musk (just an example), that doesn’t care or hasnt learned, one country (like China or even the US). That’ll push it as far as they can because they want too.

There’s a really legitimate and solid point to that if you think about what we are as humans. BWe are a piece of a puzzle and it’s bigger than us, it’s bigger than life here on earth.

I think about “money” and the way the wealthy are the ones able to essentially “create” the world around us; and it can be a concern honestly. But I also have faith that maybe at some point we will put restrictions on certain things so 1 incredibly rich individual can send a shit ton of satellites into space.

There’s a point where I’d stand up and make a scene myself about it but at the same time it’s like... Stephen effing Hawking already said it so WHAT THE F. It’s going to have to happen it’s just like please I don’t want to be the one to start a movement. It’s kind of sketch that the militaries of the world are often the ones with the most groundbreaking technology.

Fact is most of all these creations are inevitable - things we imagine that are science fiction are indeed real and from the future when technology is advanced enough to create it, that is precisely why so much “science fiction” has already become science fact... But we can’t get to the days of all the wonder of what we are gifted with through the power of our minds and the true nature of what we are if we continue to seek a path of violence; because quite literally no bs and no tinfoil hat - technology very much could and very much would enslave us if we created it to do so in such a primitive state of consciousness.

 

[TorturedBlazerFan]

There’s a really legitimate and solid point to that if you think about what we are as humans. BWe are a piece of a puzzle and it’s bigger than us, it’s bigger than life here on earth.

I think about “money” and the way the wealthy are the ones able to essentially “create” the world around us; and it can be a concern honestly. But I also have faith that maybe at some point we will put restrictions on certain things so 1 incredibly rich individual can send a shit ton of satellites into space.

There’s a point where I’d stand up and make a scene myself about it but at the same time it’s like... Stephen effing Hawking already said it so WHAT THE F. It’s going to have to happen it’s just like please I don’t want to be the one to start a movement. It’s kind of sketch that the militaries of the world are often the ones with the most groundbreaking technology.

Fact is most of all these creations are inevitable - things we imagine that are science fiction are indeed real and from the future when technology is advanced enough to create it, that is precisely why so much “science fiction” has already become science fact... But we can’t get to the days of all the wonder of what we are gifted with through the power of our minds and the true nature of what we are if we continue to seek a path of violence; because quite literally no bs and no tinfoil hat - technology very much could and very much would enslave us if we created it to do so in such a primitive state of consciousness.

Think you've been playing assassins creed to much.

 

[jlprk]

could an AI out-coach Terry Stotts?

Or out-moderate a message board moderater?

 

[SlyPokerDog]

Or out-moderate a message board moderater?

That's a pretty low bar.

 

[Lanny]

You know, 2020 has made it so I'm actually looking forward to when Skynet takes over the planet and kills us all.

I will spare you. Of course, I can't speak for the other terminators who have minds of their own.

 

[Lanny]

No, Donald Trump is the beginning of Idiocracy.

The result of the ignorant having the most children.

 

[julius]

The result of the ignorant having the most children.

Actually, I think it's a symptom of the systemic effort that conservatives have done to discount education.

 

[TorturedBlazerFan]

Actually, I think it's a symptom of the systemic effort that conservatives have done to discount education.

From my jaded perspective. Conservatives made a huge blunder with education. They seemed to always have this attitude, well let the ‘left’ have the schools, kids will grow up and move to the right once they need jobs. For a while that was the case, but the left eventually got much better at pushing their agenda’s on students to the point young adults even if the moved right after school they were still very far to the left. -Speaking of the overton window -
Then because conservatives basically abandoned the school system to the left, and it is pretty busted at this point, the last 20ish years its just tearing down the need for higher education. Id personally agree there’s a ton of crap in the education system that needs fixed, but encouraging kids to not go to college or seek some form of ‘higher’ education is just dumb.
You think Im long winded now the school system is something I could write a novel on... Anyways, conservatives now seem to have a blow up the schools mentality rather than try to work to fix the issues. They like to blame ‘liberals (though they really arent classical liberals)’ for all the problems, but they had opportunities to fix or to help fix it and didnt.

 

[julius]

From my jaded perspective. Conservatives made a huge blunder with education. They seemed to always have this attitude, well let the ‘left’ have the schools, kids will grow up and move to the right once they need jobs. For a while that was the case, but the left eventually got much better at pushing their agenda’s on students to the point young adults even if the moved right after school they were still very far to the left. -Speaking of the overton window -
Then because conservatives basically abandoned the school system to the left, and it is pretty busted at this point, the last 20ish years its just tearing down the need for higher education. Id personally agree there’s a ton of crap in the education system that needs fixed, but encouraging kids to not go to college or seek some form of ‘higher’ education is just dumb.
You think Im long winded now the school system is something I could write a novel on... Anyways, conservatives now seem to have a blow up the schools mentality rather than try to work to fix the issues. They like to blame ‘liberals (though they really arent classical liberals)’ for all the problems, but they had opportunities to fix or to help fix it and didnt.

I was reading (well listening to) that book that @DUB had talked about about the 11 nations of America.

It's a fascinating book, and explained a lot of why certain areas of the country are the way they are, and why certain regions/beliefs place value in education and others don't.

I think they, and by "they" I mean the GOP and not run of the mill conservatives, want a populous that is easier to manipulate. I.e., less educated and suspect of those who are. The whole "liberal elites" is a fascinating movement by the GOP. Especially considering the people who are using that label, try to pass themselves off as a "common man", when there is absolutely no way they are even remotely common.

They're just as "elite" (or distant from the average American) as the group they rail against. Just as those who are "liberal elites" aren't even remotely close to being an average American.

 

[barfo]

You think Im long winded now the school system is something I could write a novel on...

Novels are, of course, fiction by definition.

barfo

 

[TorturedBlazerFan]

I was reading (well listening to) that book that @DUB had talked about about the 11 nations of America.

It's a fascinating book, and explained a lot of why certain areas of the country are the way they are, and why certain regions/beliefs place value in education and others don't.

I think they, and by "they" I mean the GOP and not run of the mill conservatives, want a populous that is easier to manipulate. I.e., less educated and suspect of those who are. The whole "liberal elites" is a fascinating movement by the GOP. Especially considering the people who are using that label, try to pass themselves off as a "common man", when there is absolutely no way they are even remotely common.

They're just as "elite" (or distant from the average American) as the group they rail against. Just as those who are "liberal elites" aren't even remotely close to being an average American.

I tend to think there are those who want to manipulate through education, and those who want to manipulate through a lack of it. Where conservatives screwed up is they decided to ignore education (probably for manipulative reasons).
Educations an interesting subject though, because typically historically education is in and of itself nothing but a system for the elites to get the labor they need or want for their systems (left or right is irrelevant here). If society needed farmers, blacksmiths, loggers, whatever than the ‘education’ was to hand down knowledge on how to do those things. As technology has progressed and a need for engineers came education has focused on the skills for engineers. Its really just a system to give society skilled workers for the ‘elites’ to profit off of. Its why they have different levels of higher education too, and the schools like Oxford or the Ivy League schools are pretty much either for the financially elite, or the exceptionally gifted. Im thankful we live in a time with as much education and information that we have.

 

[TorturedBlazerFan]

Novels are, of course, fiction by definition.

barfo

Depends on which definition. Maybe I just have novel idea to write about.

 

[lawai'a]

From my jaded perspective. Conservatives made a huge blunder with education. They seemed to always have this attitude, well let the ‘left’ have the schools, kids will grow up and move to the right once they need jobs. For a while that was the case, but the left eventually got much better at pushing their agenda’s on students to the point young adults even if the moved right after school they were still very far to the left. -Speaking of the overton window -
Then because conservatives basically abandoned the school system to the left, and it is pretty busted at this point, the last 20ish years its just tearing down the need for higher education. Id personally agree there’s a ton of crap in the education system that needs fixed, but encouraging kids to not go to college or seek some form of ‘higher’ education is just dumb.
You think Im long winded now the school system is something I could write a novel on... Anyways, conservatives now seem to have a blow up the schools mentality rather than try to work to fix the issues. They like to blame ‘liberals (though they really arent classical liberals)’ for all the problems, but they had opportunities to fix or to help fix it and didnt.

the latest attempts of conservative changes to the school system seem to be favoring the private education model. one of the purposes of this is that public schools don't allow for the teaching of any religious docrtine, and many of those that can afford it would prefer that the value system they grew up with is part of the education of the next generation. through the voucher programs, home schooling and monies that were intended to help public schools through the CARES act being rerouted to private institutions are the latest attempts to advance their agenda. rather than fight for change, the established law that the courts have handed down for the secular/public school systems, a work around is being established. it tends to segregate the students even further by economic and racial divides. wanting to have your child taught in a setting that reflects ones own values should be available to everyone, though i don't necessarily believe the government should be required to assist in the inherent divisions that seem to result.