Shield AI, building the world’s best AI pilot, and Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc. (Nasdaq: KTOS), making a high-performance, jet-powered unmanned aerial systems (UAS aka drone), completion of the first phase of Shield’s AI-piloted flight-testing on-board Kratos platforms as the two companies move toward productizing Shield AI’s pilot for the XQ-58 Valkyrie.
Having successfully flown AI pilots on five aircraft — three classes of quadcopters, the MQ-35A V-BAT, and the F-16 in fully autonomous air combat training — Shield AI’s Hivemind AI pilot has now successfully flown on and controlled the Kratos MQM-178 Firejet. These successful flights are a major milestone in the comprehensive integration project as Shield AI and Kratos look to ultimately productize another configuration of the Valkyrie, in this case with Shield AI’s Hivemind AI pilot.
There was also successful integration of Shield AI’s Hivemind AI Pilot on Parry Labs’ Edge Compute Micro (EC Micro). This integration was showcased in a flight where the AI, using only onboard computing, autonomously piloted a Kratos MQM-178 Firejet through several complex maneuvers. This integration with Parry Labs’ EC Micro enhances the ability to rapidly deploy the AI Pilot across various platforms, more efficiently than working with multiple individual companies.
The EC Micro provides an on-platform operating environment combining high density CPU and advanced GPU processing resources for the orchestration of autonomy, navigation, intelligent networking, and AI/ML applications. EC Micro’s small form factor and modularity enables expanded mission capacity and enhanced command and control across a wide range of air and ground platforms.
In Decemvbr, 2023, Shield AI, expanded of their Series F funding round to a total of $500 million. An additional $100M in equity, raised at the Series F price, and $200M in debt from Hercules Capital were added to the initial $200M in equity closed in November.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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OK, I hate to be a hard *** on AI, but I have to ask: Was the AI pilot programmed with all the problems we could anticipate? (I would hope so). But that AI pilot, could never have been programed to deal with “issues” that no one ever imagined before. (As a former US Air Force officer said to me those issues only become problems when they can kill you. Or someone else) To me, AI will always be a very fast digital technology, that’s really good and fast in sorting all the vast data, we have. But their is IMO a big difference between data, and information.
Case in point: We suck up a vast amount of electronic communications, so called “data” and other countries do too. So do a rather large number of corporations and private entities. And the one who ends with the most power, is the one who can figure out what is information as opposed to just data. The problem I have with AI is not issues that are not probable, but unlikely. It’s issues utterly, new. When one has nothing to compare something to, how do you deal with it?
You have to be trained to deal with stress (when things happen your totally unprepared for, based on your ability to just “wing it”, you do, and your plane does not crash) You figure it out on the fly, no pun intended. Because that ability is based on much more then how much data you have access to. It’s based on who you are as an individual, and how you deal with stuff. (Or life). My problem with AI? If it’s not alive, and can’t see itself as an individual, can it have that intangible passion? I don’t know. I don’t see how. And that matters to me, then all the damn data in the world.
Pilots had the same response to drones being piloted remotely they were skeptics, and they were wrong.
The weakest link is the pilots. A fighter jet drone will be more lethal and capable than a piloted fighter jet, as they won’t need to all the added safety mechanisms to protect pilots. The maneuvers also can be higher Gs than a human can withstand.
AI vs human pilots, the humans lose every single time.
It depends on what mission your thinking about. Our 1970’s F-16 “needed a leash” so it did not pull high G’s longer then our pilots could tolerate. Yes, in some flight envelops drones are outstanding. Like close in dogfighting. At least in theory, for the reason you mentioned, high G’s. But a very good fighter pilot knows how to “work” his/her plane into the optimal position to take out an enemy, whatever the capabilities of their aircraft is. It’s the pilot who adapts to the aircraft. And the threat.
I see an optimum mix in an “attack wing” of a few manned aircraft, and whole bunch of drones. The pilots can change what the drones do, and how they do it. Once fighting starts, all rules, and pre-programed rules go right down the crapper. A pilot can adapt, to what has not yet been imagined. That’s what their good at. A drone could pull G’s that would rip a persons face off. OK, so lets take the best of both worlds.