ALPHA, whose destiny was once just to help train fighter pilots in simulated exercises, has proved to be so good that the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) is investigating whether the bot could provide the AI blueprint for combat drones in the future, potentially flying missions alongside human pilots. "ALPHA is an incredibly difficult opponent to face," its developer Nick Earnest, CEO of Psibernetix told Digital Trends. "Even flying against other pilots when ALPHA has severe handicaps to a number of its systems -- including speed, turning, missile capability and sensors -- it is able to win," Earnest said. "There is additional work to be done to both increase ALPHA's capabilities and improve its model fidelity -- but these results represent a significant breakthrough," said Earnest, University of Cincinnati graduate said. ALPHA was created using a Genetic Fuzzy Tree (GFT) system that uses genetic algorithms to train independent and interconnected systems.