Flying Into the Future: US Air Force Requests $5.8B for 1,000 AI-Driven Jets

0:00So the first thing you want to talk about here is the fact that the US Air Force has incredibly ambitious plans to invest billions in unmanned combat aircraft with artificial intelligence at the helm. According to their service plans, the Air Force is seeking congressional approval for a budgetary allowance of$5.8 billion. Now, this is not just going to be all at once. This is over five years to essentially build these AI-driven collaborative kind of combat aircraft. So a leading contender in this initiative is the XQ58A Valkyrie aircraft, which is designed to function as a robotic wingman alongside human piloted aircraft.

0:41And this move comes after several years of testing the Valkyrie platform, where the craft has been deployed as a draft link for F-22s and F-35s, and also the Skyborg program. So an AI-enabled system aimed at essentially controlling unmanned aircraft. So in terms of specifications, the Valkyrie boasts an operational altitude of 40 ,000 feet and can reach speeds of up to 550 miles an hour. It also has an impressive range of 3 ,000 nautical miles. So the upcoming simulation tests are highly anticipated. later this year, the Valkyrie is going to undergo a scenario over the Gulf of Mexico, where the aircraft will automatically strategize to pursue and eliminate a target.

1:25In terms of cost, the collaborative combat aircraft like Valkyrie are expected to range between$3 million and$25 million each. If I was a betting man on this situation, I'd say they're going to all be $25 million plus because, you know, things always go over budget with the military, military spending and anything in the government, but really the military. But, you know, regardless, depending on, you know, various factors such as expendability and function, those costs are, you know, set to kind of go up and down. So even at the higher end, these unmanned systems are far less expensive than human pilot of counterparts, offering a cost effective option for the military, you know, cost effective, a simple$25 million.

2:07But honestly, I know this sounds funny, but really, this is true. A human manned aircraft is significantly more expensive. And I was looking it up. It looks like Canada last year announced that they were going to buy a number of F-35 stealth planes and maybe the stealth planes are a little bit more, but they're paying $98 million per plane. I would double check if that's in Canadian dollars or American, but in any case, you know, they're set to spend over$450 million on a number of airplanes. and those are all the F-35s. Now, making these automatic AI airplanes and, you know, they're giving, they're throwing out quotes, which whether we believe them or not are going to be somewhere, you know, around the 5 million to, or the 3 million to 25 million is a significant cost savings.

2:52And so I think while the financial details are definitely compelling, I think they do not account for the ethical concerns that definitely arise from the advancements in AI and a kind of autonomous warfare. So a lot of critics right now are arguing that outsourcing lethal decisions to machines crosses a moral line that shouldn't be crossed. Mary Wareham is the advocacy director for the arms division of the Human Rights Watch. And she said, quote, you're stepping over a moral line by outsourcing killing to machines by allowing computer sensors rather than humans to take human life. So I think this sentiment is echoed by other groups opposed AI and weaponry, including the non-profit Future of Life Institute, which refers to these AI-enabled combat systems as slaughterbots, which is definitely not a very flattering name.

3:41But a lot of concerns extend to kind of the risk of rapid conflict, escalation, unpredictability, and even the creation of weapons of mass destruction driven by algorithms. There's a lot to kind of unpack in this situation. And the tricky bit here is, on the one hand, a lot of people are saying, hey, just ban AI, from the military, ban AI from weapons systems and all that. This should be humans making these decisions. But the hard part that a lot of people are trying to grapple with at the same time is obviously a lot of geopolitical adversaries of the United States and other countries, you know, you could say China or Russia, definitely are not going to be banning these types of systems if it gives them a competitive advantage.

4:22And so at that point, if they have them and we don't, then they're at a competitive advantage if all of their planes are just independently powered by AI and flying around with no people in them. And they're a lot cheaper too. So this really, really does draw a lot of challenging moral and ethical questions people are going to have to consider because there's also the entire aspect of, well, if you put an AI in there instead of a person, then you're not risking losing a soldier's life deployed overseas if one of these things gets shot down. But at the same time, there's all of the ethical questions of the people that that plane is going to kill.

4:56So all in all, I mean, I'm just really not a big fan of warfare. It's really sad that this has to happen in our day and age, of course, but nonetheless, you can't just wish for a perfect world where no one will harm anyone else. As from the very beginning of the world, this has been the story. And so I think at this point, it's really kind of determining what that moral line is that we should or shouldn't cross. I mean, at the end of the day, I think having a human sign off on any, you know, any move that would actually kill a human life makes sense. But then it's just tricky to see what the ramifications, what the implications are.

5:33Maybe, you know, there is a target that is going to cause us mass destruction and we could have, the AI could have eliminated it. But by, you know, asking a human operator, there is a few split seconds to decide and we missed our window. There's all sorts of implications to kind of determine here. And it's definitely not going to be easy. and a lot of people in very high ranks are going to be really, really looking over this. Obviously, the optics of, quote, slaughterbots is not a very flattering term, and we really would like to avoid situations where, I mean, think about it. Like, if you think ChaiGPT hallucinates, you don't want to see one of these things hallucinating or thinking anything that it shouldn't be thinking or doing anything that it wasn't programmed to do.

6:14It would be very detrimental, not just for, right, like it goes to another country and does some horrific acts, but it could also do it against your own country. So definitely something we got to look at very, very closely. So the United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Gutierrez, weighed in as early as 2019, stating that, quote, machines with the power and discretion to take lives without human involvement are politically unacceptable, morally repugnant, and should be prohibited by international law. Though the program has garnered widespread military support, especially with the Air Force's focus on really achieving next-generation air dominance, the ethical considerations are driving a contentious debate.

6:53So neither the Department of Defense nor Kratos Defense, the company behind Valkyrie, have commented on these concerns, citing the classified nature of the program. But in summary, while the Air Force's push towards AI-controlled unmanned aircraft presents a really compelling frontier for modern warfare, it also provokes a lot of critical ethical questions that society and lawmakers must confront. And I think, you know, one area that I've often thought about and, you know, take this with the biggest grain of salt that exists because I've never spent any time in the military and my experience is pretty much chalked up to shooting guns in the desert or on a gun range.

7:31But maybe beyond just having these things completely controlled by AI where they're flying around completely autonomous, maybe if you want to remove the pilot from the situation of danger in the pilot seat, you have these remote controlled from a far distance. So I know that there are drones in other areas that are using simpler technologies, and maybe something like that would fix some of these moral dilemmas. But of course, I'm no expert on this field, and I'm just bringing you the news on what's happening. So I would love to hear your opinions on this, and if you do happen to jump into our Facebook group or our Discord to let me know, I would appreciate it.