The Air Force Is Developing an AI Fighter Pilot

The U.S. Air Force could soon have a new kind of fighter jock on its roster: an artificial intelligence-powered pilot.

The project is called Skyborg, and the Air Force hopes to have it piloting drones by 2021 and fighter planes by 2023. But well before then, officials hope Skyborg will help today’s pilots better manage the flood of information they receive during their missions and enable them to make better decisions.

“I expect the first things that we’ll do will not appear as sexy as what you might imagine in a movie, but will be completely game-changing,” said Will Roper, assistant secretary for acquisition, technology and logistics for the Air Force.

Roper sees Skyborg operating as an AI wingman that will train, learn and develop alongside human pilots. This would enable Skyborg to not only improve its flying skills but also better understand and anticipate how to support those pilots. It would also give the technology the ability to identify and counter threats that its human partner might have difficulty responding to. In addition, it could fly the aircraft if the human pilot were to be injured or incapacitated.

For example, a human pilot could deploy a Skyborg-controlled drone like the Air Force’s Valkyrie into hostile airspace to take out threats or cause a diversion while completing a mission. Or, it could function inside the cockpit with the pilot, responding to voice commands and warning the pilot of threats.

 The Air Force Research Lab has teamed up with academics to build the AI. The Air Force has committed funding to the project with an aim to test Skyborg with unmanned aircraft.

And the military expects tangible results: “I don’t want this to just be a laboratory project that lives and dies there in a petri dish,” said Roper. “I want to see real, operational demonstrations within a couple years. And I will push [the developers] to be faster than that.”

As research progresses, the Air Force will need to determine how much autonomy and responsibility the AI should have over flight decisions such as executing certain maneuvers and firing weapons. But Roper emphasized that Skyborg would not replace human pilots—rather, it would enhance their capabilities.

“It’s going to make them more important,” he said. “We’re going to ask them to do even more, which is not just to fly a wicked fast, lethal plane. We’re going to ask them to fly that plane and then quarterback a team of planes with them. I think it’s going to make being a pilot more exciting.”