The aircraft flew up to speeds of 1,200mph. DARPA did not reveal which aircraft won the dogfight.
AI technically already won this debate because autonomous war drones are somewhat ubiquitous.
I doubt jets are going to have the usefulness in war that they used to.
Much more economical to have 1000 cheap drones with bombs overwhelm defenses than put your bets on one “special boi” to try and slip through with constantly defeated stealth capabilities.
Most human pilots use some variation of automated assist. The AI argument has less to do with “can a pilot outgun a fully automated plane?” and more “does an AI plane work in circumstances where it is forced to behave fully autonomously?”
Is the space saved with automation worth the possibility that your AI plane gets blinded or stunned and can’t make it back home?
AI has a already won in these confrontations
Surface To Air missile made human piloted aircraft obsolete.
All that’s needed now are a bunch of missiles, plug into an AI program and let it run by itself.
Why would militaries invest in a billion dollar aircraft piloted by a highly trained aircraft pilot with years of training that cost millions of dollars that is probably paid millions over many years … when the pilot and his aircraft can be shot down by a $100,000 missile. If you can’t do it with one missile, send three, four or ten, it’s still cheaper than matching them with an aircraft and pilot.
Instead of investing in expensive aircraft and pilots, all a defending country can do is just spend the same amount of money and surround their country with anti aircraft missiles controlled by AI systems.
Are you not aware of stealth aircraft and evasive maneuvers? Not to mention that missiles won’t necessarily down aircraft.
How do you deploy manned fighters against an aircraft you can’t detect?
Edit: As to not downing the aircraft. That’s irrelevant. It wouldn’t matter if it’s an air to air missile or ground to air…you just fire more.
I can buy thousands of rockets for the cost of a single F22 or F16.
How do you deploy manned fighters against an aircraft you can’t detect?
Detect and target aren’t the same thing. There’s various Air Defense platforms that can detect stealth air craft but they lack the resolution necessary to target them. For targetting the launch platform has to be a lot closer.
I can buy thousands of rockets for the cost of a single F22 or F16.
Annnd were back to the Air Defense platforms being hideously expensive. Literally no one can afford enough of them to cover more than a tiny fraction of their air space.
Forget “thousands” of missiles any country larger than a Lichtenstein would to need to buy millions of them along with enough Ground Detection and Launch Stations to cover their entire border. Utterly and totally unaffordable.
You understand you need all that equipment to get a manned fighter close enough to engage. At that point firing a barrage of smart missiles is still cheaper.
And what equipment would that be?
The big cost would be satellite and radar coverage. We have that already.
