Artificial Intelligence’s Place in Military Aviation

The first two revolutions in warfare can be attributed to the discovery of gunpowder in the ninth century and the development of the atomic bomb in the twentieth. Artificial Intelligence (AI), a subfield of computer science focused on creating intelligent computers that can think and act like humans, is the third revolution in warfare. By way of autonomous weaponry on land, sea, air, space, and cyber domains, AI has become sufficiently prominent in the military sphere to be regarded as a breakthrough that militaries around the world are scrambling to take advantage of in order to dominate, or at least gain an advantage over, potential or existing adversaries. Since the time of Douhet, air power has focused on achieving air supremacy, or the ability to use the air for one’s own benefit while preventing the use of the air by the enemy. However, thanks to technological advancements, ideas about air power have changed significantly since Douhet. With the development of Beyond Visual Range (BVR) missiles, air-to-surface weapons that can be launched from afar without being able to see the targets they are aimed at, stealth and speed improvements, and improved aircraft performance in terms of agility and manoeuvrability, the instruments of air power have advanced astonishingly from gladiatorial dogfights between air knights.