The Dangers and Ethics of AI
We’ve all heard of self-driving cars, but how about self-flying planes? Earlier this month, DARPA held a contest called AlphaDogfight (https://www.wired.com/story/dogfight-renews-concerns-ai-lethal-potential/). The goal was to see if an AI could be developed to pilot an F-16 in a dogfight situation better than a human can. Teams from several companies competed and eventually the winner battled a highly trained human Air Force pilot in a simulated dog fight. An AI developed by Heron Systems defeated the other AIs and went on to defeat the human pilot as well. It wasn’t just a lucky shot either. There were five test battles and Heron’s AI shot down the human pilot in all five.