经济学人下载:空战--虚拟小牛(3)

This matters not only in the context of immediate military success. Many people worry about handing too much autonomy to weapons of war—particularly when civilian casualties are possible. International humanitarian law requires that any civilian harm caused by an attack be no more than proportionate to the military advantage hoped for. An AI, which would be hard to imbue with relevant strategic and political knowledge, might not be able to judge for itself whether an attack was permitted.

这不仅关系到军事上的直接胜利。许多人担心给予战争武器太多自主权，尤其是在可能造成平民伤亡的情况下。国际人道主义法要求，由攻击造成的任何平民伤害必须与期望获得的军事优势成比例。人工智能很难被灌输相关的战略和政治知识，它可能无法自己判断攻击是否被允许。

Of course, a human being could pilot an uncrewed plane remotely, says Mr Colosimo. But he doubts that communications links will ever be sufficiently dependable, given the "contested and congested electromagnetic environment". In some cases, losing communications is no big deal; a plane can fly home. In others, it is an unacceptable risk. For instance, FCAS aircraft intended for France's air force will carry that country's air-to-surface nuclear missiles. 

当然，人类可以远程驾驶无人驾驶飞机，科洛西莫表示。但是，考虑到“竞争激烈的、拥挤的电磁环境”，他担忧通信是否足够可靠。在某些情况下，失去联络并不是什么大问题，飞机可以飞回家。但在其他情况下，这是一项无法接受的风险。比如，为法国空军设计的FCAS飞机将携带该国的空对地核导弹。

The priority for now, therefore, is what armed forces call "manned-unmanned teaming". In this, a pilot hands off some tasks to a computer while managing others. Today's pilots no longer need to point their radars in the right direction manually, for instance. But they are still forced to accelerate or turn to alter the chances of the success of a shot, says Colonel Javorsek. Those, he says, "are tasks that are very well suited to hand over". 

所以，目前的首要任务是军队所称的“人工-无人机组合”。在这种情况下，飞行员在将一些任务交给计算机的同时管理其他任务。例如，现在的飞行员无需再手动调整雷达的方向。但贾沃塞克上校表示，他们仍要被迫加速或转向来改变一次射击成功的机会。他说，这些“都是非常适合移交的任务”。

One example of such a handover comes from Lockheed Martin, an American aerospace giant. It is developing a missileavoidance system that can tell which aircraft in a formation of several planes is the target of a particular missile attack, and what evasive actions are needed. This is something that currently requires the interpretation by a human being of several different displays of data. 

美国航空航天巨头洛克希德·马丁公司就是这种“任务移交”的一个例子。该公司正在研发一种导弹规避系统，该系统能够识别由数架飞机组成的编队中哪架飞机是特定导弹攻击的目标以及需要采取何种规避行动。目前这需要人类对几种不同的数据显示进行解释。

Another example is ground-collision avoidance. In 2018 a team led by the American air force, and including Lockheed Martin, won the Collier Trophy, an award for the greatest achievement in aeronautics in America, for its Automatic Ground Collision Avoidance System, which takes control of a plane if it is about to plough into the terrain. Such accidents, which can happen if a pilot experiencing severe g-forces passes out, account for three-quarters of the deaths of F-16 pilots. So far, the system has saved the lives of ten such pilots. 

另外一个例子是避免地面碰撞。2018年，由美国空军(包括洛克希德·马丁公司(Lockheed Martin)在内的一个团队凭借其自动地面避碰系统赢得了科利尔奖(美国航空领域最伟大成就奖)，该系统可以在飞机即将撞上地面时控制飞机。这类事故占F-16战斗机飞行员死亡人数的四分之三。目前为止该系统已经挽救了10名这样的飞行员的生命。