Breaking the black box: Chinese scientists solve a ‘big tough challenge’ to the US Air Force’s AI project
- Researchers are creating a smart air combat system that can explain the decisions it makes during battles to humans
- It overcomes the ‘black box’ issue that has been a hurdle for both US and Chinese militaries amid an AI arms race
The smart air combat system can explain the decisions it makes during intense battles, and share the motives behind these moves with humans.
The United States began testing the application of AI in air combat earlier than China. While China was still engaging in real-sky combat between human-controlled and AI-controlled drones, US test pilots had already taken their dogfighting AI to the skies for trials.
Prevailing AI technologies, such as deep reinforcement learning and large language models, operate like a black box: tasks enter one end and results emerge from the other, while humans are left in the dark about the inner workings.
But air combat is a matter of life and death. In the near future, pilots will need to work closely with AI, sometimes even entrusting their lives to these intelligent machines. The “black box” issue not only undermines people’s trust in machines but also impedes deep communication between them.