Take it from U.S. Air Force Captain Kyle McAlpin when he says that scheduling C-17 aircraft crews is a headache. An artificial intelligence research flight commander for the Department of Air Force–MIT AI Accelerator Program, McAlpin is also an experienced C-17 pilot. "You could have a mission change and spend the next 12 hours of your life rebuilding a schedule that works," he says. It's a pain point for crew of 52 squadrons who operate C-17s, the military cargo aircraft that transport troops and supplies globally. This year, the Air Force marked 4 million flight hours for its C-17 fleet, which comprises 275 U.S. and allied aircraft.

An AI-controlled fighter jet will battle a US Air Force pilot in a simulated dogfight next week -- and you can watch the action online. The clash is the culmination of DARPA's AlphaDogfight competition, which the Pentagon's "mad science" wing launched to increase trust in AI-assisted combat. DARPA hopes this will raise support for using algorithms in simpler aerial operations, so pilots can focus on more challenging tasks, such as organizing teams of unmanned aircraft across the battlespace. The three-day event was scheduled to take place in-person in Las Vegas from August 18-20, but the COVID-19 pandemic led DARPA to move the event online. Attend the tech festival of the year and get your super early bird ticket now!

An AI-controlled fighter jet will battle a US Air Force pilot in a simulated dogfight next week -- and you can watch the action online. The clash is the culmination of DARPA's AlphaDogfight competition, which the Pentagon's "mad science" wing launched to increase trust in AI-assisted combat. DARPA hopes this will raise support for using algorithms in simpler aerial operations, so pilots can focus on more challenging tasks, such as organizing teams of unmanned aircraft across the battlespace. The three-day event was scheduled to take place in-person in Las Vegas from August 18-20, but the COVID-19 pandemic led DARPA to move the event online. Before the teams take on the Air Force on August 20, the eight finalists will test their algorithms against five enemy AIs developed by Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.