Are RAF's Top Guns heading for extinction? No, says CAS, as he quotes Maverick
AI and autonomy are fundamental to the changing character of war – and they're also fundamental to how the Royal Air Force adapts and is employed, the Chief of the Air Staff has said.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Harv Smyth, who was delivering the Lord Trenchard Memorial Lecture at Rusi in London, said AI and autonomy "must form a central node to how we develop our future capabilities and all of our concepts of operation".
"AI never gets tired," he said. "AI doesn't lose consciousness at 9G, AI doesn't get mentally exhausted at the end of a 10-hour mission and, my own personal nemesis, in a cramped fast jet cockpit AI definitely doesn't need to go to the loo when it's still miles from home.
Maybe so, but not today
"Simply put, managed correctly AI can be better than a human, the trick is to operate alongside a human to make them greater than themselves and the sum of the parts."
But for any pilots who were starting to fidget in their seats and who'd probably now lost count of how many times he mentioned the two As – AI and autonomy – the head of the RAF decided to quote "the world's best ever fighter pilot, Captain Pete Maverick Mitchell of Top Gun fame".
ACM Sir Harv made us all sit up a little straighter and lean in as he said the quote he was about to deliver was "one his team thought he'd take out" – but he decided to keep it in.
That quote came not from the original Top Gun, but its sequel Top Gun: Maverick.
At the prospect of fighter pilots heading for extinction, Tom Cruise's character says: "Maybe so sir, but not today."
Autonomy, not flesh
The Chief of the Air Staff followed Maverick's quote with this: "For me, the question is not about either/or, it's about the balance between the crewed and uncrewed."
But nevertheless he said a new doctrine of "autonomy, not flesh" should guide the modern military.
Referring to the Allies' "steel, not flesh" strategy during WW2, ACM Sir Harv said: "You will also be familiar with the steel, not flesh philosophy, a Western way of war during the Second World War that embraced the emergent technology of the day."
He said this involved aircraft and tanks to avoid the bloody and costly nature of trench warfare.
ACM Sir Harv said: "Given today's changing character, I would argue strongly that the modern paradigm must now become autonomy, not flesh."
He spoke of a recent industry visit where he got to see a showcase of the utility of autonomy and artificial intelligence.
"AI seems to be at the centre of every conversation at the moment and this was set within a complex scenario of our defence tactics and procedures that frankly took me 15 years of frontline flying to understand," he pointed out.
"These were being developed and refined at a tempo measured in seconds and minutes. AI language models in the synthetic environment fighting each other in the air-to-air world, 24/7 for 14 days accruing the equivalent of what was seen to be 50 years of human air combat training and experience."
A threat to our existence
Despite his insistence on keeping the Maverick quote in his speech, he made it clear that the role of humans would be undergoing a fundamental reordering.
"AI will enable warfare at speeds well beyond human comprehension, meaning that our role will shift towards the outside and it will shift towards controlling the activity and setting the guardrails," he said.
ACM Sir Harv also spoke of the threats faced by the UK.
"The international rules-based order that secured our sanctuary and prosperity for generations is being actively challenged and dismantled by our adversaries," he said.
"The threats we face are no longer distant storm clouds on the far horizon. They are proximate. They are rapidly evolving. They are multifaceted and if left unchecked could prove existential."
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