US air force’s AI-powered F-16 jet comes up trumps in dogfight with human pilot
Published on May 4, 2024
- Air force chief Frank Kendall conducted a test flight on the Vista plane that went nearly nose to nose with a second human-piloted F-16
- While China has the technology that would dominate future air combat, there’s no indication it has found a way to train AI agents outside a simulator to fly in 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 US air power. 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 unstaffed warplanes, the first of them operating by 2028.