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On 8 February 2022 at Fort Campbell, Kentucky a US Army UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter achieved a milestone in unmanned autonomous flight. DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, outfitted this particular helicopter with the new ALIAS device. ALIAS stands for Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System and is one small step away from full-on Artificial Intelligence autonomous control of aircraft. Or is it already there?
What is ALIAS?
The ALIAS was originally designed as a digital co-pilot system for aircrews. It was supposed to help do some mundane simple piloting tasks to free up the aircrew for more complex decision making in real time. However, ALIAS has shined so bright in preliminary tests, the brainiacs over at the most top secret research facility we know about, DARPA, decided to see if the system can do all of the tasks of the aircrew, without the aircrew present.
The Test
So they created a model of downtown Manhattan and had an ALIAS equipped Black hawk run the course. Human free. They didn’t pre-program a route, just the mission. They told the ALIAS where to go, and it flew itself there. It made decisions on navigation and plotted it’s own route through the course. We told it what to do, and it figured out how to do it. Then did it.
So how did the ALIAS Chopper do? Igor Cherepinsky of Sikorsky Innovations worked with DARPA on this program. He said,
“(The helicopter flew) through downtown Manhattan with all the buildings. The aircraft was avoiding potential buildings in real time. So think about the operational need for that.”
What They Say it’s For
The project manager for the program from DARPA, Stuart Young said that ALIAS has 3 main goals. The first is to aid pilots with automation solutions in visually degraded environments. The second is to reduce costs and increase mission effectiveness by reducing training needed, and third is reducing maintenance costs. Those are the main goals they will tell us about. What about the other goals? All of this begs the question, what else can the ALIAS do?
Scary Possibilities
Can we ask it to go to an area and eliminate all hostile targets? Not quite yet, as navigation and flight is much simpler than combat. And there is also the moral and ethical dilemma of having a machine making the kill decision on humans without humans in the decision making process. Not to mention the operational problem of identifying accurately what is friend and what is foe. The last thing you’d want to happen after sending a “hunter killer” helicopter out to protect a platoon is to have it wipe out every human in the operational area, friendlies included.
SKYNET on the Horizon?
For the longest time, AI Machine Combatants was thought to be right out of the realm of possibility, but not anymore. With the recent advancement of ALIAS, we know have the ability for complex vehicle operation, like a helicopter, to be carried out autonomously. The next logical step is autonomous engagement in combat. For me, this reminds me of SKYNET. The AI driven controller of all military assets from the movie series The Terminator. SKYNET becomes “self aware” and determines that humans are inferior and a threat to it’s existence, so the machines declare war on the humans. Great movies.
The Missing Link
But not a great reality. In the recent months we’ve covered how the military is using satellite linked weaponry to assassinate undesirables. Drones that have the ability to drop grenades on single soldiers heads is a real thing now too. And even robotic sniper dogs that are remotely controlled. The one thing all of those systems was missing is ALIAS. The ability for the machine to carry out the task, not just perform based off of human operation.
Which then leads us to the logical conclusion of when will the kill decision be taken out of human hands? That philosophical question is not just a thought experiment, now it is a target date. Unfortunately, us civies and even the majority of the military are not privy to this info. We do not “need to know.” But I can guarantee you this, if they are telling us about this, then it doesn’t hold a candle to what they are not telling us.
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