The never-ending saga of machines outperforming humans has a new chapter. An AI algorithm has again beaten a human fighter pilot in a virtual dogfight. The contest was the finale of the U.S. military's AlphaDogfight challenge, an effort to "demonstrate the feasibility of developing effective, intelligent autonomous agents capable of defeating adversary aircraft in a dogfight. Last August, Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, or DARPA, selected eight teams ranging from large, traditional defense contractors like Lockheed Martin to small groups like Heron Systems to compete in a series of trials in November and January. In the final, on Thursday, Heron Systems emerged as the victor against the seven other teams after two days of old school dogfights, going after each other using nose-aimed guns only. Heron then faced off against a human fighter pilot sitting in a simulator and wearing a virtual reality helmet, and won five rounds to zero. The other winner in Thursday's event was deep reinforcement learning, wherein artificial intelligence algorithms get to try out a task in a virtual environment over and over again, sometimes very quickly, until they develop something like understanding. Deep reinforcement played a key role in Heron System's agent, as well as Lockheed Martin's, the second runner up. Matt Tarascio, vice president of artificial intelligence, and Lee Ritholtz, director and chief architect of artificial intelligence, from Lockheed Martin told Defense One that trying to get an algorithm to perform well in air combat is very different than teaching software simply "to fly," or maintain a particular direction, altitude, and speed. Software will begin with a complete lack of understanding about even very basic flight tasks, explained Ritholtz, putting it at a disadvantage against any human, at first. "You don't have to teach a human [that] it shouldn't crash into the ground… They have basic instincts that the algorithm doesn't have," in terms of training. "That means dying a lot.

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.

Artificial Intelligence or AI as it popularly called is surely and steadily working its way to become more like humans. We have had an AI which injured its host will fully while another AI robot ran out of its enclosure in Russia. Now another AI has successfully managed to beat an ace fighter pilot in a combat simulation. Recently, an artificial intelligence (AI) named ALPHA developed by a University of Cincinnati doctoral graduate went up against retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Gene Lee in a high-fidelity air combat simulator. The result, the Colonel lost. In a series of flight combat simulations, the A.I. successfully dodged Lee, and shot him down every time.

A pilot A.I. developed by a doctoral graduate from the University of Cincinnati has shown that it can not only beat other A.I.s, but also a professional fighter pilot with decades of experience. In a series of flight combat simulations, the A.I. successfully evaded retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Gene "Geno" Lee, and shot him down every time. In a statement, Lee called it "the most aggressive, responsive, dynamic and credible A.I. I've seen to date." The fact that an AI downed a professional fighter pilot? Or the fact that the AI was developed by a graduate student?