The tests employ artificial intelligence, which has crushed all human pilots during simulated dogfighting.

The United States military is moving closer to a Terminator-style warfare by exploring ways to turn its air force, or a part of it, into autonomous machines. A CBS video report published last week says the Pentagon has tested a F-16 fighter jet packed with artificial intelligence, which in computer-simulated dogfighting beat all experienced human pilots. 

Visiting Sikorsky Aircraft, the manufacturer of combat and transport helicopters, the journalist team could see how far the technological advances in the field of warfare have reached.

An experimental Blackhawk chopper was operated from a tablet to take off and fly around the base. Although the commands came from a human officer, it was AI which decided how to carry out the orders, leaving the reporter puzzled about who or what in fact controlled the machine.

A representative of DARPA – the Defense Department’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency – explains that they were not trying to replace humans but “make their jobs safer” and “avoid casualties” – meaning probably among friendly troops. The lab has already produced and tested an army of drones, off-road buggies, unmanned undersea vehicles, self-propelled machine-guns, and other weapons.

Delivering AI into a fighter jet computer is a challenging task but inevitable, the report suggests upon speaking to military and AI experts.

In 2018, more than 2,400 scientists and AI researchers signed a petition to ban autonomous lethal weapons. Since then, the initiative brought together at least 5,200 notorious people.