Recently, Boeing, Kratos Defense & Security have won a contracts on developing the “Skyborg” drones for the U.S. Military. According to Flight Global:“The initial UAVs are to be delivered no later than May 2021.” But what they really are?
Skyborg is meant to be a UAV (abbreviation for unmanned aerial vehicle: an aircraft that is operated from a distance, without a person being present on it), cheaply built one so it could be lost in combat in large numbers. Although by saying cheap, we are talking about a price between $2 million and $20 million per piece. But what is more interesting is that the drone is meant to be controlled via artificial intelligence, a system called Skyborg Autonomous Core System.
But can we trust AI with such responsibilities as controling the drone in combat, with the risk it might fail at what it does, potentionally harming innocent people? We still do not know for what exact purposes will Skyborg be used. “The aim of the Skyborg Vanguard programme is to integrate autonomous attritable unmanned air vehicle technology with open missions systems to enable manned-unmanned teaming,” says the USAF. “Skyborg will provide the foundation on which the air force can build an airborne autonomous best-of-breed system that adapts, orients and decides at machine speed for a wide variety of increasingly complex mission sets.”
Some words being said by USAF might sound terrifying and I don’t by any means support war, but as a fan of AI, I am curious what this project will bring. You can learn more about Skyborg at National Defense Magazine.