The Air Force wants $6 billion to build a fleet of AI-controlled drones
The F-22 and F-35 are two of the most advanced and capable war machines in the US arsenal. They also cost $143 million and $75 million each respectively. Faced with mounting pressure from China, which has ramped up its conventional arms acquisition efforts in recent months, the Pentagon on Monday announced a program to bolster the US drone production base in response. As part of this effort, the United States Air Force has requested nearly $6 billion in federal funding over the next five years to build a fleet of XQ-58A Valkyrie unmanned aircraft, each of which will cost the modest sum of $3 million. /p>
The Valkyrie comes from Kratos Defense & Security Solutions as part of the USAF's LCASD (Low Cost Attritable Strike Demonstrator) program. The 30-foot unmanned aircraft weighs 2,500 pounds without fuel and can carry up to 1,200 pounds total of ammunition. The XQ-58 is built as a stealth escort aircraft intended to support the F-22s and F-35s on combat missions, although the USAF considers the aircraft to fulfill a variety of roles by adapting its instruments and weapons on every mission. This could include surveillance and resupply actions, in addition to assaulting enemy aircraft in active combat.
Earlier this month, Kratos successfully used the XQ-58 in a three-hour demonstration at Elgin Air Force Base. "AACO [the Autonomous Air Combat Operations team] took a multi-pronged approach to unmanned flight testing of machine learning artificial intelligence and achieved operational experimentation goals using a combination of high-computing performance, modeling and simulation, as well as hardware in the loop testing to train an AI agent to safely fly the XQ-58 unmanned aircraft,” said program manager Dr. Terry Wilson. AACO, in a press release at the time.
"It's a very strange feeling," USAF test pilot Major Ross Elder told The New York Times. “I fly away from something that makes its own decisions. And it's not a human brain. The USAF was quick to stress that drones must remain firmly under the command of human pilots and commanders.
The Air Force came under fire in June when Col. Tucker "Cinco" Hamilton "misspoke" at a press conference and suggested an AI could potentially be instigated. turn against its operator, although the DoD has dismissed this possibility as a "hypothetical thought". exercise" rather than "simulation".
"Any Air Force drone [will] be designed to allow commanders and operators to exercise appropriate levels of human judgment on the use of force," a spokeswoman for the Air Force said. Pentagon at NYT. Congress will have to pass the DoD's budget for the next fiscal year before construction efforts can begin. The XQ-58 program will require an initial expenditure of $3.3 billion in 2024 if approved.
The F-22 and F-35 are two of the most advanced and capable war machines in the US arsenal. They also cost $143 million and $75 million each respectively. Faced with mounting pressure from China, which has ramped up its conventional arms acquisition efforts in recent months, the Pentagon on Monday announced a program to bolster the US drone production base in response. As part of this effort, the United States Air Force has requested nearly $6 billion in federal funding over the next five years to build a fleet of XQ-58A Valkyrie unmanned aircraft, each of which will cost the modest sum of $3 million. /p>
The Valkyrie comes from Kratos Defense & Security Solutions as part of the USAF's LCASD (Low Cost Attritable Strike Demonstrator) program. The 30-foot unmanned aircraft weighs 2,500 pounds without fuel and can carry up to 1,200 pounds total of ammunition. The XQ-58 is built as a stealth escort aircraft intended to support the F-22s and F-35s on combat missions, although the USAF considers the aircraft to fulfill a variety of roles by adapting its instruments and weapons on every mission. This could include surveillance and resupply actions, in addition to assaulting enemy aircraft in active combat.
Earlier this month, Kratos successfully used the XQ-58 in a three-hour demonstration at Elgin Air Force Base. "AACO [the Autonomous Air Combat Operations team] took a multi-pronged approach to unmanned flight testing of machine learning artificial intelligence and achieved operational experimentation goals using a combination of high-computing performance, modeling and simulation, as well as hardware in the loop testing to train an AI agent to safely fly the XQ-58 unmanned aircraft,” said program manager Dr. Terry Wilson. AACO, in a press release at the time.
"It's a very strange feeling," USAF test pilot Major Ross Elder told The New York Times. “I fly away from something that makes its own decisions. And it's not a human brain. The USAF was quick to stress that drones must remain firmly under the command of human pilots and commanders.
The Air Force came under fire in June when Col. Tucker "Cinco" Hamilton "misspoke" at a press conference and suggested an AI could potentially be instigated. turn against its operator, although the DoD has dismissed this possibility as a "hypothetical thought". exercise" rather than "simulation".
"Any Air Force drone [will] be designed to allow commanders and operators to exercise appropriate levels of human judgment on the use of force," a spokeswoman for the Air Force said. Pentagon at NYT. Congress will have to pass the DoD's budget for the next fiscal year before construction efforts can begin. The XQ-58 program will require an initial expenditure of $3.3 billion in 2024 if approved.
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