Unmanned Aerial Vehicles are rapidly making human fighter pilots obsolete. Might be better to use a UAV and to that have it flown by a 16-year old video game player, which will in turn be used to program the next generation of Artificial Intelligent robotic tactical UAVs. How can this be happening so fast? Well, it is not really happening very fast, as they have had drones for decades and missiles for at least six decades. Artificial Intelligence is making the difference.

Old mainframes with tape drives did not learn like in Artificial Intelligence of today, but you must remember, you can program a tic-tac-toe game into a computer and it will never lose, only draw. It will never lose. MIT proved that, but if you think on it; you will know this simply be reasoning as tic-tac-toe is a simple game with simple rules. This is basic Tinker Toy Logic, it is all ones and zeros, there is an X in cell or grid 1, 0 in cells 4 and 5 the rest are empty. There are only 6 possible answers. If the computer is the Xs it chooses grid space 6, to block. You chose you 0 in box or grid space 3, it blocks space seven draw.

If it is playing a human and the human messes up one time in any game the computer will win that game. The computer does not get tired and will play until you unplug it. You will eventually mess up, you are human and to be human is to error. If you as a fighter pilot choose a different game, it has most likely encountered or been programmed it. If you are totally creative you may choose a maneuver, strategy or game it does not recognize or has not been programmed for and you might win? But what if it is relaying the data to other units in the battlespace and over all system, which the computer UAV now knows that; that did not work and will disengage if encountered until it has been programmed for such as maneuver? Whereas if you lose, it wins, you are dead and it now knows it can beat you if you do that.

I believe we can design a computer better than the average human and since there are so few innovators in any walk of life, granted fighter pilots, more than other sectors; you may lose a few dogfights, but will still lose the war to the UAVs with artificial intelligence. Eventually the human cannot win, and you may wish to think bragging about being 100% human now. There aint a whole lot that is very special about this carbon based biped. Consider these thoughts when designing UAVs with artificial intelligence.

Lance Winslow

Currently Lance is retired at age 40 and is running an Online Think Tank Forum while traveling North America. Perhaps considering something extremely challenging to do that will exercise his mind and utilize all his experiences, observations and skills. Any ideas?