It is every Top Gun's worst nightmare - an AI can can outmanoeuvre them in the air. Now researchers have tested their AI on a retired top gun - and left him stunned. Retired United States Air Force Colonel Gene Lee took on the AI in a simulator - and lost. An AI has beated Air Force pilots in simulated showdowns for the first time. Retired United States Air Force Colonel Gene Lee took on the AI in a simulator.

When the Raspberry Pi computer was first launched in 2012 to promote the teaching of computer science, its creators probably didn't imagine the 35 device would one day take on a professional fighter pilot in a dogfight--and win. But that is exactly what a doctoral graduate at the University of Cincinnati set out to do when he built a Pi-powered artificial intelligence pilot. The AI, dubbed ALPHA, went up against retired United States Air Force Colonel Gene Lee in a series of simulated battles, beating Lee in every single engagement. Lee described ALPHA as "the most aggressive, responsive, dynamic and credible AI I've seen to date." ALPHA has gone on to defeat other expert fighter pilots in what is being hailed as a significant breakthrough in unmanned flight.

It is every Top Gun's worst nightmare - an AI can can outmanoeuvre them in the air. Now researchers have tested their AI on a retired top gun - and left him stunned. Retired United States Air Force Colonel Gene Lee took on the AI in a simulator - and lost. An AI has beated Air Force pilots in simulated showdowns for the first time. Retired United States Air Force Colonel Gene Lee took on the AI in a simulator.

It is every Top Gun's worst nightmare - an AI can can outmanoeuvre them in the air. Now researchers have tested their AI on a retired top gun - and left him stunned. Retired United States Air Force Colonel Gene Lee took on the AI in a simulator - and lost. An AI has beated Air Force pilots in simulated showdowns for the first time. Retired United States Air Force Colonel Gene Lee took on the AI in a 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.