'Top Gun' AI outguns veteran pilot in combat simulator

A recently-developed AI program dubbed ALPHA is being described as the most aggressive and responsive flight simulator to-date, having outwitted a veteran fighter pilot with thousands of hours of flight experience. Since the 1980s, a fighter pilot's first experience of flying a plane has typically been in the confines of a computer combat simulator that would teach them the hazards of in-flight combat without fears of any causalities. In 2016, this method remains ever-present and more important than ever, with programmers and researchers regularly updating a simulator's AI to help it prove more of a challenge to skilled human pilots. Now it seems those pilots have finally met their match. A University of Cincinnati (UC) graduate, Nick Ernest, has developed his own AI – dubbed ALPHA – as part of his own start-up, Psibernetix, with aims of making it a research tool for crewed and uncrewed teaming in a simulation environment. Having wiped the floor with other AIs earlier last year, a newer version of ALPHA has been pitted against retired United States Air Force Colonel Gene Lee, who has been besting combat simulator AIs since the 1980s.