The US Air Force (USAF) is on the verge of gaining 1,000 small, autonomously-piloted “ghost” fighter jets under a new project launched by the Pentagon. Last year, the USAF successfully tested an AI-piloted stealth jet called XQ-58A Valkyrie, and plans to roll out fleets of these unmanned aircraft are progressing. Defence giants Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, General Atomics, and Anduril Industries are battling for the $6 billion contract, with plans to narrow the selection down to the final two firms in the next few months.
The AI-piloted jets, otherwise known as Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), will be armed with weapons and missiles. As these craft won’t need a human pilot, they can be made smaller, approximately 20 to 30 feet in length. This optimizes agility, allowing the CCA to perform maneuvers that would prove risky for their human counterparts. They will be capable of flying as low as 30 feet from the ground at a speed of 600mph. The MQ-28 Ghost, developed by Boeing in Australia, is one of the aircraft in contention.
The shift towards autonomous fighter jets has not been warmly received by some existing fighter pilots. They recognize the potential of being reassigned from cockpit controls to command desks. However, the superiority of AI-piloted aircraft has already been demonstrated and is expected to only improve over time. Initially, these unmanned jets will be used to supplement, rather than replace, human-piloted aircraft.
The economic argument is a compelling factor behind this pivot to autonomy. With both the cost of conventional jets and pilot training being high, the autonomous jets, priced at an estimated $10 million each, are projected to cost just one-tenth of an F-35.
The recent advances in AI technology are transforming aircraft management systems, as evidenced by Shield AI’s development of Hivemind. This AI pilot enables swarms of drones and aircraft to manoeuvre autonomously even without GPS, communications or a human operator. It empowers a single ground controller to direct 10 jets from any location on the globe, with the CCA autonomously forming swarms to carry out an objective without human intervention.
The ghost jets propose a solution for Pentagon staff responding to China’s growing military capabilities. However, the ethical considerations of equipping AI-controlled CCA with missiles, within a $6 billion budget, remain uncertain. The decision to move towards AI-piloted mini ghost fighter jets hints at the shape of future warfare.
