Europe’s first fighter with I was flying over the Baltic – and can change the face of war

In May, a Swedish jet fighter Gripen and took off and flew over the Baltic Sea. I had no pilot to the commands.

During two exercises held in May and June, a Swedish jet fighter flew only under the command of the artificial intelligence software IA Centaurdeveloped by the Defense Startup Helsing.

In the cabin, the SAAB fighter was carrying a human pilot for safety control – which was literally crossed arms: it did not need to intervene.

The two test flights are an important milestone for Helsing, a defense technology company based in Munich, and a potential turning point for European military aviation.

“This is a revolutionary change,” he said Stephanie LingemannDirector of Helsing, Ao. “In previous flight simulations, AI Centaur has made the equivalent of a Million of flight hours in just 72 hours “More than a hundred times a human pilot can accumulate over a whole career.”

In addition to its superhuman performance, AI Centaur marks a paradigm change in military aviation. “No need to send human pilots For dangerous situations, ”says Lingenn.

Swedish fighter piloted by Helsing software places Europe at the forefront of the race to develop unmanned combat aircraft – where the United States, China and Russia have bet on recent years.

Combat aircraft have a high cost of development, construction and maintenance. But its highest cost is actually that of the thousands of training hours of the pilots that make them fly.

AI entry into action can soon significantly decrease the cost of operation of these aircraft – removing humans from the equation.

Despite the enthusiasm, the way for widespread adoption of AI to the command of combat fighters is not free of obstacles. Automatic learning – the technology that feeds these systems – is still learning how to interpret and respond to the chaos of war.

Military experts stress that the complexity of air combat scenarios makes risky complete autonomy. “The robotic war is centuries away,” says a commander of the US Air Force, quoted by.

Indeed, any minor changes in flight conditions, such as the presence of tires on a track, can confuse systems of computational vision – that is, AI can master the skies in great simulations, but stumble in the dirty and ambiguous reality of war.

Ethics questions

The use of totally autonomous AI systems in war scenarios raises important ethical issues. The possibility of completely autonomous lethal drones – the type of systems that select and attack targets without human intervention – raises a lot of controversy.

Antoine Bordesvice president of Helsing for AI, emphasizes that humans must remain at the center of decision making, but defends the importance of giving autonomy to IA systems. “If we don’t do it in Europewith our own values, Someone will do so elsewhere“.

A year ago, a team of Chinese scientists created, based on the characteristics of human military leaders, the world. The virtual general is, for now, incarcerated in his laboratory.

Still, experts estimate that it can still take a long time Until the first completely autonomous system can effectively assume the command of sophisticated military systems.

In a first phase, says Lingemann, AI will mainly have the role of assisting human pilots, offering Complex maneuvering assistance and threat detection. But sooner or later, he considers the director of Hesing, the role of AI on the battlefield will be different.