Retired Air Force Colonel Gene Lee flies against ALPHA in a simulator. (Credit: Lisa Ventre/UC Magazine) Move over Maverick, there's a new Top Gun in town. A new program developed by researchers at the University of Cincinnati could give real-life fighter pilots a run for their money. Called ALPHA, the artificial intelligence has proven itself by repeatedly besting an experienced fighter pilot in a dogfight simulator without once being shot down. And, instead of a requiring a room-sized supercomputer, the program ran on a laptop.
The system is based on a type of programming called "Genetic Fuzzy Tree" logic. The AI takes a more human approach to decision-making, breaking down big decisions involving hundreds of factors into smaller pieces that can be analyzed separately. This greatly reduces the number of inputs the computer must sort though for any given choice, allowing it to think much faster. These sub-decisions are then ...
