The future of air power

I have previously posted about the end of manned flight, at least in fighters. Here is what it will look like. The last manned fighter has been built.

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3 Responses to “The future of air power”

  1. Eric Blair says:

    Dr. K., the one thing that science fiction and progress have proved to me is that none of us can predict the future. In the early 80s, could you have imagined the quick and bloodless fall of the Soviet Union? Not me.

    Who knows about the future of aviation? The U2 went to the SR-71. There has long been talk of the Aurora…and then nothing. Why did the Air Force move away from that kind of “spyplane”? Drones, is the conventional thought (since I don’t hold with the UFO conspiracy theorists). Maybe the same will happen with attack craft, too.

    Although it does make worry about SkyNet, if you will excuse the “Terminator” reference.

    J.B.S. Haldane put it best: the universe is not stranger than we imagine. It is stranger than we can imagine.

  2. Dmac says:

    Eric, you have a point regarding the “SkyNet” reference. There was a story a few weeks ago detailing the problems the military encountered with their new robotic guns during operations in Iraq – seems that the guns initially turned 180 degrees and started locking targets on their operators (!). Since that incident they’ve rushed to assure everyone that the problem was just a glitch and they fixed it immediately, but…yikes.

  3. Eric Blair says:

    Brrr, Dmac. It may indeed be cheaper to put AI into these drones, and make them more and more autonomous. True, it is a long, long way from the T1000 series.

    But I keep thinking about insects. VERY simple rules, applicable to AI, result in what sure looks like complex behaviors.

    If they link all the autonomous drones to one system…well….I’d start looking for killer robots from the future pretty quickly.