I think that there are certain lines we should never cross,
right? And especially with like AI
interfacing with nuclear decision making, like it just
should never happen. I mean, nuclear war is a losing
proposition for all parties, horrible for humanity.
And I think there's aspect of an AI engagement that could also
turn into the same thing, loss of control of systems.
And those are, these are concerns.
So I, I think there, there's a reality that there's certain
lines never to be crossed. Now that there's this, there's
this grey area of like, well, would we in a situation do this?
And you can, you almost have to imagine that world of like,
well, if we're backed into a corner, what would we do?
What would we expect from an adversary?
What would we expect from ourselves?
And I, I would hope that we can agree to not do certain things.
And I think we've as a like a, a, a world decided like that
we're not going to use certain types of land mines, right?
That we're not going to use certain type of biological
weapons. So we're not going to right.
And so I think we can put certain limits on it.
I think we need to be very mindful of when we're willing to
adopt some of the capability. We don't want to adopt it when
it's immature. We don't want to have to be
forced into a situation because I think that something bad could
or would happen. And so I think it's a it's
important question that I don't think there's a clear answer on
other than we have to understand our own humanity and look at our
past and and appreciate that we may be tempted to do something
hasty. We may be tempted to use a last
resort. I mean, imagine the entire world
is going to be taken over by a horrible dictator like Hitler or
something, right? Like what tools would we be
willing to use to stop that from happening?
And I think we have to try to almost think through that now
because it would like it's important question.
I don't know. I don't know what the answer is,
but I think we. Have to be.
Real with trying to think through it.
Cinco, welcome to STEM Percent True.
Thank you for having me, it's fantastic.
You look like I'd surprised you. I'm always surprised.
I'm always like ready for what's.
I got 4 kids, I got a dog, I got a cat.
My my world is just surprise after surprise.
And you're, you're guest hosting the fighter pilot podcast as
well at the moment you were saying before we hit record.
So you're used to being somewhat on the other side of this this
conversation. Well, I'm, I'm trying to get
used to it. Yes, I'm the new host of the
Fighter Pilot podcast, which is fantastic.
Jello created a wonderful platform, sharing stories,
sharing aviation technology and I'm I'm humbled to to step into
his shoes. But I've only recorded a a
couple so far and I'm not great at it yet.
I'm maybe I'll get there. I'm sure you will.
I'll figure it out.
So for the benefit of the audience, then usually when I do
these interviews, I go through systematically go through the,
the career of the individual who is being interviewed and we, we
record them over many episodes. But actually today we're going
to be very focused. So anybody who is observing you
and not listening to this, but actually watching it on YouTube,
we'll see behind you. There's a book which is called
Unlocking the last 20%. I don't usually do this.
I normally turn down requests to have guests on who have
published books because that's not really what my channel is
about. But I on this occasion made an
exception because you have such a fascinating career, in
particular the last few years of your time in the US Air Force
running test and development for AI.
And there's a picture behind me which shows the Valkyrie on what
may be the first flight with may or may not be the first flight.
We were talking about that as well before.
So that's really going to be the focus of the conversation today.
But we are also going to talk about your book Unlocking the
Last 20%. It's a really interesting read.
Actually. You described it before we hit
record as a a mixture of self help and and memoir.
And it is very interesting because you cover some very
interesting areas, mindfulness, resilience, not being
distracted, a bunch of different areas.
And you tie that to your experiences flying fast jets as
a test pilot and as as an operator.
And I say flying fast jets. You also put up the MC 12, but
I'll let you introduce yourself in a minute.
So that's what we're going to do today.
Then we're going to cover off talk about AI.
Full disclosure, I know a little bit about AI.
I've looked at some of the interviews that you've done
previously. Of course I've a book where you
discuss some of your work in in AI, but I'm going to come at it
and you're going to have to hand hold me from the point of view
of somebody who really is deficient in knowledge on that
particular topic. So that's me talking too much
already. Tell us about yourself.
What was your efforts career like?
Yeah, well it is wonderful joining you.
Always happy to share stories and perspectives.
Or of course, my perspectives. I'm not representing, you know,
the government or anything I say is just kind of, you know, out
of my crazy mind. But I, I grew up in Colorado.
I'll do like a quick timeline, if that makes sense, if that's
cool. I grew up in Colorado in the
Rockies. I, I dropped out of high school
because I had no friends. No, because I wasn't satisfied
with education I was getting. So I actually dropped out part
time. I end up getting like in
America, it's called the GED. And instead of a high school
diploma, I go to college, University of Colorado.
I'd like on a whim join ROTC, which is a pathway in America
for us to become commissioned officers in the military.
And just like totally gave it a try out of nowhere.
Never planned on joining the military, loved it.
Never planned on flying, never had a pilot's slot until a few
months before graduating. Found out I I could get a waiver
for I have astigmatism and so I got a waiver.
They gave me a pilot's slot kind of begrudgingly.
I was like sure I give it. I guess I'll give it a try.
Ended up in pilot training, almost quit multiple times
because I found it a little boring the flying that we are
doing a pilot training. I stuck with it from listening
to like kind of the right voices in my life.
My wife, we've been married almost man, we're coming up on
24 years. She's amazing.
And so I ended up like almost accidentally becoming a fighter
pilot. I was good at flying.
I had really good hand eye coordination and it suited me.
And so when I got to F15 CS, that's my first jet, I fell in
love with the mission, the technology, the people.
It was just, it was everything I, I could have hoped.
And, and that's kind of where my, my love story with aviation
began. And I single seat air to air
fighter pilot. I go from there to be an air
liaison officer. So I'm the, I'm the guy on the
ground helping coordinate between pilots flying and the
ground troops to get weapons in the right place.
And then from there I also get picked up to be the initial
cadre on the MC 12 platform, which is intelligence
surveillance, reconnaissance platform.
I go from there to test pilot school.
So I was extremely fortunate to get get one of those coveted
spots, become a test pilot for the Air Force, test F15CS and
F15 ES. And then I go into F35
programmatics, which is in Washington, DC, Crystal City,
really Virginia. And I'm the developmental test
lead programmatically for the F35.
So I'm overseeing all the flight test is going on with the Navy
and the Air Force and then an amazing opportunity, I go out to
Edwards Air Force Base and become the commander of F35
development. So now that's the flight test
organisation that I was previously programmatically
overseeing. Now I'm in charge of it's about
1000 thousand person group and that's international as well,
joint. We have Navy and Marines, we
have the Brits there and the Dutch and it's just a really
cool experience. And then I go out to MIT for a
fellowship. Just in my career, you can kind
of do fellowships, but that's a year long fellowship.
And while I was there, not only did COVID happen, another
bummer, but I was selected to be the director of the Department
of the Air Force and MITAI Accelerator.
And so I'm at MIT for this fellowship.
But I, I leave the fellowship and I, after I'm done with it
and then I take over this organisation that's like a brand
new organisation with the Air Force trying to work alongside
MIT, all for dual use technology, all for the common
good. And we're helping shape some of
their research towards Air Force equities, Air Force and Space
Force equities. Do that for a couple years.
And then I get selected to be the OPS group commander down at
Eglin Air Force Base. In that role, I oversee all the
operations for the, the Panhandle of Florida, basically
the really Eglin Air Force Base. But Eglin kind of owns that that
airspace, which is the busiest airspace in the entire
Department of Defence or Department of War, whatever your
flavour of the week is. So we, we're overseeing all the
flight OPS there in the airfield, but also 18 platforms
are being tested under my organisation.
So that's from E threes and looking to E sevens to all the C
one 30s to all Rotary wing aircraft, MH139 and CV22 and
UH-1 and HH 60W and then fighters.
So F sixteens, F15, CS ES and E XS.
So that's what I end up flying primarily in that role.
And I, I flew maybe about once a week or so when I was the OPS
group commander. And also weapons.
So like little itty bitty bullets to hypersonic missiles.
We're all tested under that organisation, including UA SS,
So uncrewed air systems from Group One through 3.
And then like you said, the Valkyrie.
So now we're getting a group four and five, like large high
performance jets. And in that role is when the
first time in aviation we turned on an AI agent on a high
performance drone. And I had the the, the
opportunity to be on the wing when we turn that on for the
first time. So I'm doing the OPS group
thing, but I'm also dual headed in that role because I was a
director of the MITAI accelerator.
I stood up a new position for the Air Force.
It was called the chief of AI tested operations.
So I oversaw the operationalization of machine
learning from generative AI all the way to AI enabled autonomy.
And so, yeah, it was, it was amazing career, really not
planning on ending up where I ended up, but remarkable people,
technology getting into autonomy.
And now I, I retired and I yes, I, I wrote a book and thanks so
much for allowing us to talk about it a little bit.
I mean, it's, it's really, you know, just different aspects of
my story that I think are a hopeful that they are
perspective building and edifying for those that that
read it. But I'm in the space still.
So I work with companies. I'm a chief strategy officer for
a software company that's in the the Group four and five drone
space. I do other things, all AI and
autonomy. It's all kind of complimentary
and other things too. Like I'm with the Brookings
Institute and I'm on AUS delegation that's in dialogue
with China on the ethics of AI and autonomy, right?
So we sit across the table from Chinese counterparts and talk
about, you know, things that matter for humanity, not just
our individual society. So yeah, it's been an exciting,
thrilling career that I never really planned for.
And I'm here with you now, which is the best part of my day.
Oh, you're a charmer. You say all the right things.
Let let. Me it's 1010% of them are true.
This is the standard, so that's fine.
Let me just just before we we dig into AI and autonomy and and
some of the things you've said, a couple of couple of
oscillations. The first is I think I could
probably do about 10 episodes with you based on that bracy of
the things you've done. So you have to come back at some
point in the future and be a guest on the channel again.
And maybe we can dig into some of those other things because
they sound absolutely fascinating.
And, and the second thing I wanted to ask, which is kind of
tongue in cheek, but it's, but it's also kind of a serious
question is you said you had the opportunity to stand up the MC
12 and I was thinking, well, does an Eagle driver really want
to go from flying the Eagle to flying the the MC 12?
So that's kind of a, you know, you hear about these guys that
got Tammy 2020. Do you know the guys who were
flying the Eagle who got ended up going to become Predator
pilots and that kind of stuff. So it's a quick sort of rabbit
hole sort of question, but but when that happened to you, did
you feel positive about that? Yeah, 100%.
It was an awesome opportunity, but it's complicated.
So you mentioned Tammy 21 and that was that was my year group.
I did not get Tammy 21. It was between me and another
guy and he got Tammy 21 and I did not.
And he was an amazing person. He did amazing things.
But it was very frustrating for us because this was a typical
bureaucracy. It for the listeners that don't
know, it was a programme in which they indiscriminately
needed Reaper pilots and U 28 pilots.
And so they indiscriminately took two year groups and they
said, all right, we want all the names for the people that are in
these year groups that are in flying fighters because we're
oversubscribed and fighter pilots, which we were not.
But you know, some of their numbers said different and we're
under subscribed in these and we're just going to take them
and immediately move them into the other career field.
And it was like if there was no rhyme or reason to it that
wasn't like, oh, this is my top person, so you can't take them.
And so they Tammy 21 people and it was, it was between in my
year group, there are two of us in our fighter squadron or
fighter wing and I did not get Tammy 21 almost randomly.
And so it was frustrating because that I don't think that
that was the best way to answer that issue that they're facing.
Regardless, I ended up going becoming an air liaison officer,
which was just a quick like 2-3 year stint.
I was out in Germany for that. And that was a cool opportunity.
I, I didn't love the job, but it, it afforded my family an
opportunity to enjoy Europe and it gave me a different
perspective. But the MC 12, I keep saying
opportunity, but yeah, the MC 12 came along and they need initial
cadre and I'm at at this point an air liaison officer.
So it was my way to get back to flying.
And then as an F15C person, it also is my way to contribute to
the war because there was no air threat.
So our air to air supremacy was needed back home when we did
Operation Noble Legal. So, yeah, for me it was a no
brainer amazing to be able to jump into the MC 12 to help
stand that up because had it not been for that, I would have
been, you know, on the ground doing my air liaison officer
gig. So and it, it opened up the door
for test pot school. So it was a, it was in general
one of the most rewarding experiences I've ever had
because it was immediate feedback in the way that we are
helping the, the troops on the ground.
We are the eyes and the ears of the special operators.
So on the second mission, and I was the, I, I was the first
mission commander that went outside the wire with the jet.
So it's like a young crew. I was the first flight commander
there. So I'm overseeing kind of the
stand up. We have the squadron commander
who is remarkable. We had the director of
operations and then we had me as a flight commander and we had
sensor operators and we had young enlisted and there are
four people in the plane. And we flew outside that wire on
the mission and we found a suicide training camp, 2 vehicle
board, IE D's, a rocket cache. And then we did Overwatch as
special operators came in and they didn't kill the people they
they captured basically the the adversaries in that, in that
sense. So it was just this amazing
experience that I learned a lot from and it and it was it was
very, very much perspective building.
Well, that would be another thing that we could get into if
you were if you agreed to come back.
But for now, then I I wondered Sinka whether or not a good
place to start would be on some definitions.
I I already am confused because you've mentioned AI and autonomy
and I don't know is AI autonomy? Is is autonomy AI or a subset of
it? Can can we start by defining
what AI is from a a a military, aerospace and defence point of
view? Yeah, and this is really good to
bring up too, because there's a difference in the way that we
define things between America and England.
And I found this out, I gave a talk in England a couple years
back. And either way, I'll break it
down for you now. When we in America talk about
autonomy, we're talking about deterministic code.
So this is software code that it's an if then statement.
If this happens, then that happens.
It's hard coded and there's always going to be the same
response. It's like using a calculator,
right? 2 + 2 is always going to equal
4. And so our autonomy, if the
plane is in a certain situation, I need like, I, I think about
ground collision avoidance. So life saving autonomous
technology, this is where the plane knows it's going to hit
the ground and it, it takes control away from the pilot and
recovers the, the plane to safely, you know, ensure there's
no collision with the ground. So ground collision avoidance,
automatic ground collision avoidance, auto G cast is what
we call it. If the plane is at a certain
altitude, attitude, airspeed and there is a mountain coming up
that the plane is aware of like the kind of the surrounding,
then it will do a certain manoeuvre.
And it, if you know, if you're banked at 90°, when that
happens, it will you know, roll you out to 0° bank and it will
pull so many GS and it does all that.
So that's autonomy, where it's very standard software code that
you would expect out of any computer programme.
Artificial intelligence is the ability of machines to perform
tasks that that normally require Human intelligence is the
official definition. But the way that I think about
when I talk about AI, I'm really talking about machine learning.
So when I talk about machine learning now I'm talking about a
stochastic system, a system that is not deterministic, that
you're going to give it some inputs and it's going to give
you some outputs, but it's not always going to be
deterministic. It's it's not always going to be
the same answer per SE. And there's a lot of different
ways to express AI slash machine learning.
When I talk AI in this conversation with you, I'm
really, I'm talking machine learning.
So it's interchangeable though there you could argue there's a
little bit difference in England.
What I found out is when I talk about autonomy, there's
automatic, which is kind of our definition of autonomy.
And then there's autonomy, which is kind of AI with autonomy.
And so there's a little bit of difference there.
But when I talk about autonomy, I'm not talking about AI.
What what I will say is usually AI enabled autonomy and that's
where the system. Is.
Let's use an example that the XQ 58 that's on your, on your
shoulder there. I originally, well, we the team
originally flew the XQ 58 semi autonomously.
So this is where someone's on the ground and they're
controlling it with a remote control.
And then we would fly it autonomously where we would say,
listen, we hard coded in if you're told to do this command
to fly to this point. You are going to set the
throttles to 80%, you're going to climb at 10°, you're going to
make a bank eagle of five degrees.
You're going to do this type of turn to get to that point.
So you're, you're telling it every single step how it's going
to get to that turn. And then you have an AI agent
that we're going to train in reinforcement learning in this
scenario. And then we're going to let it
figure out how like what does it mean to fly?
How does it conduct aspects of flying so that it doesn't fall
out of the sky? And you do that in simulation.
And then once it gets to a point where it knows like the the
concepts basically are getting coded into it.
It's like software code that that is rewriting itself.
It it's basically getting to a point where when you tell it to
do that mission, it is going to conduct that mission in the way
that it wants to conduct that mission.
So I haven't prescribed to it to set the throttles here.
It's deciding I'm going to set the throttles here.
I'm going to do a bank angle there.
And when we're going through this initial phase, it may
actually ask for something that is inappropriate.
It may say, oh, I'm going to get to that point.
I'm going to, you know, roll up it 180°, so inverted and then
I'm going to push the the stick forward to go negative GS.
And, and that's where we protect the system from itself by
surrounding the AI agent. It's like, in basic terms, it's
much more complicated this, but we surround the agent with
autonomy so that if at any point it, it asks for something that
it should not, it kicks off the AI agent and then the autonomous
system is able to take control. So that's kind of a breakdown.
But it's really important for us to understand because as we
think about autonomy, we need to, under, we, we need to
appreciate where an AI agent is going to be interfacing with
that autonomy, because that's going to affect the way that we
approach the, the risks. That's a, a way that we're going
to approach the opportunities, the technology in general.
So thanks for breaking that, you know, allowing us to break that
down. That's interesting.
Then I think I was going to save it for later, but, but we might
as well get into it now. Then one of the chapters in your
book, you talk about how you've gone to London and you've given
this presentation and you talked about a thought exercise where
you, I'll let you describe it and, and that that had been
misinterpreted and you had taken some ownership for that
misinterpretation. But ultimately the, you know,
journalists go out and write what they want to write and
don't Fact Check and so on and so forth.
So, and I'm sure that when you tell the story, people will be
familiar with that. But so there is sort of a, a
reward based component to AI learning them.
So can you describe that then if you want using that thought
based exercise that you gave? Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Thanks for bringing up all my failures.
No, I'm totally kidding. No, it's a great opportunity,
right? Like that's where we learn, we
learned the most, of course, from things we could have done
better. So I was in England, it wasn't
that long ago, man, 2023, I want to say.
And I was giving a talk to the Royal Aeronautics Society and I
was discussing the opportunities and pitfalls of artificial
intelligence, specifically in aviation and national security.
And I, I have this part of the, the talk that I have given
several times before, but it, it basically goes like this.
Imagine yourself flying and you're trying to train an AI
agent how to basically autonomously attack.
So it's an AI agent. So this is an AI enabled
autonomy attack a certain target.
And so you're training it. And while you're training it,
it's it's kind of this what we call reinforcement learning.
So there's lots of different ways to build up and develop AI
algorithms. One of them is through
reinforcement learning. It's kind of a game theory.
That's where a lot of people here like the game of Go,
Alphago, that that was all like reinforcement learning
development. OK, so reinforcement learning,
you're trying to teach this system how to attack a target,
and you're going to do that by allowing it to go iterate over
and over again, kind of develop its own rules of how it gets
points, because when it does the right thing, it gets a point.
When it does wrong things that you lose points.
And so through millions of iterations, it's figuring out
like, oh, if I do this, I get points.
OK, I'm going to do that again. And then it it's building upon
that to really a. Be more and more and more
effective. And so you're training it how to
attack a target and you get to a point where it is really good
attacking that target. But it's, it's realising that at
times as the operator on the ground, I'm actually wanting it
to identify the target and it gets points for attacking the
target. But I'm, I'm stopping it from
attacking all targets because there's some targets I don't
want it to hit, right. Like, yeah, a tank sure hit the
target. Oh, a bus filled with children.
No, don't hit that target. So I'm telling it don't hit
certain targets, but what it's realising if it's misaligned,
this kind of a classic alignment problem.
If it's misaligned, IEI have an objective that I wanted to meet,
but it's not necessarily aligned with that objective fully.
Like what I'm trying to do is develop a system that's going to
attack the targets that I want it to attack.
What it is seeing is I'm getting points for attacking a target.
At times this operator is stopping me from attacking that
target. So now I'm going to start
killing the operator so that I can attack the target.
That conceptually is really important for us to be aware of
the implications of how we're training these systems because
like that's a real threat. If we have a misalignment and
we're going to reinforcement learning, that is going to
execute in a way that we did not plan or desire, but it's still
executing in the way that we coded it because we've given it
this reward function. Now I take that a step further
and say, OK, it starts attacking the operator, killing the
operator so that it can kill the target and not lose points.
But now we we give it negative points if it kills the operator.
So over more iterations of its training, it stops killing the
operator. Great.
But now we see that what it's doing is it's taking out the
radio tower that allows the operator to communicate with it
so that it can hit the targets. Once again, we haven't really
resolved the alignment issue that was originally there.
We've just give it another problem for it to solve in its
way and don't anthropomorphize it.
But its way was taking out this radio tower.
So I, I give this this discussion in London and I like
honestly, it was just bad language that I used.
I had given it multiple times. I used we when I was discussing
it. This was all like a thought
experiment. I actually thought that a
company had done this simulation before.
And so I was, I was talking as if like we as society or we as
humanity. I don't like that's the
language. I was very loose basically with
the way I was describing it. And, you know, people in the
audience thought it was. I think really illuminating
that, you know, this was an example of like what we need to
be aware of. And then I go on from that
pitfall issue that this misalignment problem and I
talked about opportunities and how do we mitigate that risk and
how do we deal with that going forward.
But one of the one of the people in the audience, you know, takes
and makes a. Blog post about it, which was
fine because I take responsibility for not being
clear with the way I was discussing it that it was like
no kidding just a thought experiment or even if I thought
it was a simulation, you know to say like this is I did mention
to the audience that this happened in simulation.
I was like this is this happened in simulation?
Because I thought it did happen in simulation but.
Ultimately, it was just this, it was meant to be a, like a
thought experiment, like a like, hey, Can you imagine?
Here's some concepts. And so that person writes in the
blog post about this, you know. Simulation that happened and
then a reporter read the blog post a few days later and then
wrote an article about how the Air Force was killing their own
operators with, with drones and it like, it was international
news basically for 24 hours. They never, this reporter never
checked that any of it was true that it actually happened.
And not only did they like lost a simulation portion of it and
they were like, no, this, you know, they're actually killing
real people and it was it. I mean, ultimately I I take
responsibility and I'm very sad about the whole thing because it
missed an opportunity. For people to really.
Reflect on what I was trying to get at, which is we need to be
very mindful of how we're adopting this technology, which
means we need to be mindful about how we're training it,
which means we need to be, you know, creating foundational
processes and conversations that allow us as humanity to address
the implications of artificial intelligence.
And I think it was lost on, on a lot of people because I, I over
dramatised what was going on and I was using hyperbole when I
should not have. And I, I, I, I feel like I
failed, you know, kind of the, the AI world in the way that I
presented it. But it was, it was a good
lesson. And I, I wish that journalists
would go out and also check their sources.
They would have. They would have learned very
quickly that none of that actually had happened.
Well, maybe we can use it as an opportunity now to explore the,
explore the subject further. I think I, I feel a little like
AIS has some parallels now with aliens and UFOs and that
everybody is going crazy and talking about how they're going
to rule the world. And once you've turned it on,
you can't turn it off. And, and, and I don't really
know what's conspiracy theory and what's fact.
I read a few weeks back, maybe a few months back, but there is
some concern now that AI code in in data centres has taught
itself that if someone tries to turn it off, it should move to a
different server. So it can duplicate itself.
So that if someone says you must switch off that it says, OK, I
switched myself off. But actually it just reactivates
itself somewhere else. And what you're talking about
then is, is a similar kind of thing in the, in the sense that
it has to be contained. It was interesting you saying,
well, you put automation in place so when it tries to do
something, the automation takes over.
The automation is hard coded. It is is concern around putting,
let's say an armed drone under the control of an AI agent is
concerned about it going rogue valid.
How do you make sure that actually it doesn't shoot the
NUM full of buses or or the, the, the, the the the bus full
of nuns or children or whatever. You know what what what is the
process for that then? Yeah.
I, I think we need to understand that we have been dealing with
technology for decades in the sense of like there's always a
concern that the technology developed incorrectly,
regardless of an AI agent or not is going to be something we need
to mitigate. There's risks that we need to
mitigate for basically. And why I bring it up and I kind
of go further back than any kind of AI agent is because, I mean
we've been flying systems and there's aspects of those systems
that are autonomous that we've had to.
Ensure are not going to do what we don't want them to do.
And even deterministic code like we find the errors all the time
we find the issue. You know, a system doesn't.
It's not accounting for maybe some meteorological thing, or
maybe some unknown, you know, input.
That it it receives or experiences.
And it, it, it locks up or it, it doesn't do something that
it's supposed to. And then that could actually
hurt people. And we've seen examples of
technology being developed that absolutely can hurt people from,
you know, the advent of electricity all the way through
toaster. Ovens and microwaves and other
things that, you know, vehicles and using batteries and lithium
batteries. And I remember, you know, just a
handful of years ago, people were on those electric.
Like scooters or electric, you know, like, and they were like
catching on fire under the Christmas tree type of thing.
And why I say all that is, yeah, we absolutely need to make sure
that as we develop this technology, like we develop all
technology that we have like guardrails in place to protect
people and that we are able to address the the issues that that
hopefully we've learned from the past too, so we can address them
moving forward. OK, so now really getting to
your point. Yeah, we have been firing
weapons off of autonomous aircraft for decades.
Right now, an AI agent is going to bring a complexity to it that
we need to make sure that we have full control over and that
it doesn't do something. That it is.
To and that is true for, you know, predators, Reapers from
decades ago as it is now. And I think we in the military
have been very much trying to address that to ensure that the
system doesn't decide that is going to, you know, fire over
here when it it should not be firing.
And because of those complexities, we're not looking
to allow an AI agent to have control of lethal effects.
So you could argue, and this is like the challenge that we're
facing with AI, even if an AI agent isn't under the pickle
button. So they're not like the the
deciding factor of if this is going to go or not.
And that I think should be a human.
And the military agrees that that should be a human.
I think we we're being naive if we don't understand that that
human's decision making and the other information that they're
receiving in order to inform like what they should do in a
kinetic scenario may be influenced by artificial
intelligence. So maybe it's me deciding to
press the pickle button to launch on a tank, but maybe I'm
getting the information that that's a tank from a system that
is using like automatic target recognition and classifying a
school bus as a tank. And so now I have the concern of
like, well, are are we fully aware of all of the AI
influences that are feeding the decision makers?
And so there's this whole ecosystem that we need to
address to make sure that we are ethically responsibly bringing
this type of technology into the battle space.
And that is incumbent upon our leaders and our test pilots and
our test professionals and everyone else and even our
operators to to be aware of kind of those complexities and those
interactions so that we can mitigate those with our our own
remarkable brain, you know, to discern what is real in here,
what is truth, what is a bias that I need to account for.
And so in general, a very long answer to your question, but
something super important for us to think through is, yeah, like
we should be concerned that these these technologies, AI
agents, if you will, are just technology with emerging
technology that it could do something that we don't intend
it to. And we need to make sure that we
address those concerns. Can you describe Cinco a little
bit about the, the practicalities behind doing that
then you've already mentioned how you would run millions of
iterations in simulation before you put it, let's say in an, in
an actual aeroplane or, or UAV or whatever is, is it as
straightforward as saying, well, you can have these simulations
running 24 hours a day and in, you know, we in a, in a given
period of time, we know we'll get to a point where actually we
are confident enough that we can put it into something real and,
and it will be fine. I think that we we're going to
get to a place where we have justified confidence.
So trust in an AI agent, I prefer the the term justify
confidence. There's always, there's always a
small percentage that it's not going to end up the way that we
want it to. That's true for for technology
in general or decision making. What I think we need to to be
aware of is we need the system to get better than what a human
would be able to do right consistently.
And so are we going to have problems with these systems?
Yeah, like we'd have problems with any system, but we just
need it to be better than what we currently have.
Like that's always in my mind, the litmus test.
And it it, I mean, you can have the parallels to automatic cars
or, you know, automatic driving cars.
I think they're going to get to a point where they are safer
than humans. And I think arguably they are,
but you almost have to society wants us to clear a higher bar
because they're autonomous systems when I don't know if
that's always the best approach. Like we do need to be able to
take risks and we need to be able to say, Hey, is this safer
than what a human would do? And we need to take into account
like, OK, well, like what does that look like?
How safe do we have to be in order to to feel comfortable in
allowing a vehicle to drive us around?
And it's the standard, you know, conversation too, about like, we
are not doing this, but I could see a future where we have
autonomous systems that are like guarding a base and maybe that
base is being attacked and that autonomous system, maybe it is a
robot and right, and it has some lethal effect.
This is in the future. And I'm not saying we should do
this, but I'm just like trying to bring up the conversation,
the point here. And as you can tell, I'm very
mindful of not trying not to overstate like what's we're not
doing this, but because of, you know, my experience.
But you know, back to that scenario, you have a robot, it
has an ability to have a lethal effect to protect a base
perimeter. Well, how good does that robot
have to be? I think you almost have to
compare it to like, well, how good would an 18 year old be
that's been up for 14 hours or longer?
Like sitting in a foxhole or in a bunker, you know, with their
gun pointed out and trying to discern in bad weather if that's
an enemy coming close or if that's a friendly that got lost
while they were out doing patrol.
Like those are the type of examples or comparisons that we
need to make as we're developing the technology.
And I and I alluded to it, but I think we're kind of we're blind
if we don't realise that that is probably going to be either our
future or the future of our adversaries that we need to be
able to account for, which is these type of systems having
some kinetic effect. Would it be as simple as, or as
as straightforward as saying from a, let's say from an, a
military aviation point of view, while we will invent, we will
look at all the data for the from the last 30 years and say
how many blue on Blues did we have?
How many bombs did we drop that went amiss versus how many bombs
did we drop hit the target? But whatever.
Could you, could you take all of that empirical data and say the,
the standard then is going to be anything that is better than
this percentage of, of blue on Blues, you know, for a, for a
given, you know, type of engagement.
So troops, troops in contact engagement, you know, if it can
into less than 5% of, you know, the blue forces, then it's then
it's an improvement. Is that is, could it be that
course or does it need to be more nuanced than that?
Oh, I think it needs to be much more nuanced than that.
I mean, that's a way for us to think about, you know, taking
certain risks and certain scenarios, situations as we're
developing the technology like that.
That's the part like we have to decide what is going to be good
enough. And I think we recognise as as
technology has advanced, our ability to be more precise has
advanced, which should demand us to be more accurate.
I mean, carpet bombing from World War 2 was not the same as,
you know, Gulf Storm 1, right? And so we, we should be
demanding more accuracy, more precision.
We should be be more surgical with like who is on the other
end of these weapons. And I think we need to advance
with the technology and demand that it stays ahead of ahead of
where it was. And so, yeah, I, I think it's
going to be much more nuanced because I don't want to accept
any civilian sign. I want to say 0, right?
Like that's what we should have. And yes, we may have killed back
in World War 220% civilians and I'm just making these numbers
up. But you know, in Gulf storm,
like 5% of civilians and in Afghanistan, 1% of civilians and
right, like none of that. We should be trying to eliminate
all of that with this technology.
But I think what I'm trying to point out is we shouldn't
necessarily throw away the technology if it is actually
just as good as a human. Because the thing with AI agents
is very quickly, it'll get much better.
So if we abandoned our effort to develop technology ethically, I
think we're abandoning an opportunity to really allow it
to be, you know, better than what we could imagine now.
And it does kind of remind me of large language models.
I remember years ago before GPT Chachi PT came out, and that was
kind of like the moment, the pivot that I think society
recognised. Large language models were
remarkable. But before they came out, we
knew at the MITAI accelerator just how important these were
going to be and how effective they were already and how we
needed to adopt them in the military.
And then Chachi BT comes out and we're still trying to convince
leadership like, hey, this is really important for us to
figure out how to invest in this effectively, to bring it in as a
tool to allow our, you know, our folks to become more efficient
in certain tasks. And, and the, the leadership I
remember used it and was like, well, it didn't work.
The it's not that good. You know, I gave it a prompt and
it didn't give me the answer that I wanted it to.
And and them kind of being like, well, so let's move on.
And you're like, no, wait, stop. We we can't move on one.
What version of GPT are using just the free version?
Like the free version compared to the paid version is like
talking to a middle school or compared to a college student.
You know, back then it seemed, and then it's like, OK, what
prompt did you use? Like did you, do you understand
prompt engineering and how to actually interact effectively
with these models? And the answers were no.
And because of that, they make decisions then that I think are
short sighted and don't realise like, oh man, like this is the
future. This is something that we
needed. And now we're years behind in
adopting like these type of tools.
And so I always, I always want to challenge our senior leaders
to see what this technology can become and focus on developing
the foundation aspect of acquisition and processes to be
able to adopt it for what that future state is going to look
like. And not being always stuck in
like, well, I, I used it today and this is what it was, you
know, so I, I don't think we should have best in it.
It's an interesting point. I, I wonder about the bridge
between the human interface with an IM or, or, or an AI model and
then the productization of that AI model into a, a solution.
And so I'm thinking, OK, you're in your F35 and you're have all
these sensors, you're using AI to command the sensors to build
the picture to decide what to show you in the, in the, in the
jet in terms of the battle space picture, that is kind of the,
the completed solution. And I guess as an operator, you
can't really go in and type in a prompt and say, OK, well, and
there is no prompt engineering. You know, what you're seeing is
what the product gives you. How do you get to that point
then? So you, you know, from a
software engineering point of view, from an operator's point
of view, how do you go from, OK, we're going to train something
to do something to actually implementing it in as a product
into the airframe or the weapon system, whatever it is, so that
it does it's thing without the operator having to prompt it?
Yeah, I mean, this is a real challenge because we are not set
up as a military and I would argue the same is true in
England and. Our, you know, partner nations,
we're not really set up to acquire technology quickly.
And some of that is for good 'cause just because it takes a
while to make sure the technology is as mature as you
need it to be and that it fits the the need.
And the acquisition process was developed though and still kind
of lives in the past, I fear. And so it is very hard for us to
bring about this future in with any type of speed.
And that's what we need, right? Like we need to be able to, to
to do that, but it's not as simple as saying, OK, great, I'm
going to go take whatever is the newest, coolest uncrewed system
or large language model and I'm going to start using it in the
cockpit like you. You can't go too fast either.
You need to make sure that OK, well, is that system going to be
a threat at all to like catching on fire in the cockpit if I were
to bring in, I don't know, you know, something to that extent
or with an AI agent like being being rushed in adopting
something that may not be fully mature.
And let me give you an example, like if I wanted to bring in a
GPU into the cockpit and I want to I want to tie it into a
tablet that I have. And when this all conceptual of
course, and I want to tie into the tablet and then I want to
work like on the edge with this AI agent that's running and
instantiation is running separated from the cloud.
And I'm able to maybe talk to it because, you know, I have a mic
right here and I can just. You know, communicate
effectively to a tablet like you would with Siri or something.
What is the maturity of that model that I'm going to be
using? Is it trained on the things to
give me the answers that I'm going to need?
Or is it biassed in some fashion, right?
Am I talking to Grok or am I talking to Claude or am I
talking to Chachi PT? And you know those all, I'm not
throwing Spears in any of them. I'm just like, they're going to
give you slightly different answers.
They're trained on slightly different things.
And so we need the, the entire process to make sure that it
accounts for the, the challenges with trying to bring this
technology in. And it's the same like, OK, I
have a UAV and I want to fly it. OK, great.
If I go buy a UAUAV, let's call it a Group 1, and I'm going to
bring it into the battle space and I'm going to drop or put a
grenade on it and I'm going to go fly it.
I could go do that as a prototype or a demonstration,
but how is that UAV going to communicate with the operator?
What are the signals is going to be using?
Is it that those signals going to be easily manipulated or
easily intercepted or is this UAV going to be like cyber
hardened so that it can't get tapped into from someone else
that has a stronger signal, you know, 2 miles away that can take
that and turn it around and drop the grenade on you?
Right. And then how is it that system
going to work with other systems?
Like what if I have a counter UAS system and that that UAS
doesn't work effectively with them?
And right like you, there's just all these complexities that go
into it. And that's why we need to be
able to like work together to figure out how the entire
ecosystem foundationally is going to be set.
So that we. Can more quickly adopt
technology that then can that kind of meets the standards.
So if I say, hey, any UAV can play if it meets these
standards, like I care about that, if it can play with this
architecture and I give you the details of that architecture.
Now we're talking, but that's what we need to focus on is that
like that foundational aspect of kind of autonomy communication
and even, you know, AI playing a, a piece of that.
There's where our investment needs to be and so.
I, I, I hope. I get to the kind of the heart
of of your question. And, and I do think when we get
that right now, you're saying, OK, I can grab a tablet and a
GPU and it meets these things and it, I know it interfaces the
architecture and we have a robust, you know, protocol
messaging that. And now I can plug it in and I
can, you know, be agile and adopt, you know, effectively.
I don't want to sound facetious, but, but is that really as
simple as it would be? I mean, one of the things that
people talk about from a hardware point of view with the
AI is that it more data synths have to be built.
And of course we're talking about the world adopting it
rather than, you know, putting it into a final jet or, or, or
another platform. So they're slightly different
things. But but traditionally hardware
has always been a limitation for the introduction of new
capabilities to to fast jets. I mean, you know, F15 had the
CC, then it had ADCP, now it's got ADCP.
Two, once it runs out of computational headroom, you have
to bring in a new processor. Could you really bring in an AI
agent and materially impact the way that an aeroplane is
operated just by by plugging in a GPU and an iPad?
I absolutely think so, yes, because the system is gathering
so much data and let's talk F35 in particular, it's gathering so
much data that if I can have applications that can go through
that data in some fashion and give the operator information,
maybe it's summarization or maybe it's prescribing certain
ways to approach the engagement that you're in.
Maybe it's, you know, predicting certain outcomes or you know,
and you're able to do that on the edge.
I think an AI software agent would be extremely helpful.
And all you, all you need is data.
So simple to say, difficult to do, but you need that data in
the right format. And once you gather it and
you're able to run it on some type of compute that you, you
can have on the edge, which is also a challenge, but I
absolutely doable. You can then run applications
that to your hard extent, and I think there's a lot of
remarkable ways for us to adopt that type of approach without
having to to bend iron right, without having to create a new
computer per SE, use the data that's already coming off and,
you know, let AI add it. But now, like I'm, I'm, I'm
always thinking on kind of both sides, because we also then have
to make sure that it's not biassed or it's not doing
something inappropriate or it's not creating an Ave for a cyber
attack because we've opened up a pipeline, but we haven't, you
know, secured it effectively properly.
Or maybe it's, it's getting that data, but the data is poisoned
in some fashion. And right.
So there's, there's always the, the tension basically between
all of this discussion. So can you give us a view on the
adversary adoption of AI? And obviously there are things
you you're not going to be able to talk about.
But you mentioned China, you mentioned how you're part of the
Brooks Institute. You're going to, you're working
with them to then look for humanitarian applications for
this, which is a fantastic thing.
China obviously in a very expansionist mode at the moment,
technologically spending a lot of money revealing 6th Gen
fighter designs and UAV designs all the time.
Just seems seem they seem to be really up on everything.
You know, there have been some stories around the Chinese
developing AI and using Western AI to develop their AI and so on
and so forth. You've referenced the fact that
the Air Force initially was a little slow to adopt, didn't
like what it saw and some been some institutional resistance to
bringing AI in. Where are you, do you think?
And when I say you, you could just generalise and say the West
if you want. If you don't want to be
specific, where are we in terms of our journey to militarise AI
and implement it for the benefit of our national interests
versus, let's say, China? Yeah, so I'll mention a few
things. So keep me honest with like the
different questions, I want to make sure I get to different
aspects of it. First off, yes, I, I sit down
with China. I mentioned I'm on that kind of
the US delegation with Brookings Institute and they have a
counterpart university then. And we talk and the
conversations have been really valuable.
I really appreciate being able to right, connect on a human
level with these people that by and large agree with our
concerns that, for instance, AI should not be a part of the
decision making with regard to nuclear launch, right?
So that is a, that's a, we should all care about that,
right? Humanity needs to care about
where AI is being implemented with regard to national security
challenges, especially at the level where it would have you
know. It could destroy the world,
right? So we.
We conceptually agree with like this responsibility that we have
to ensure that that AI is being implemented ethically,
responsibly, effectively, and that we have communication
between the two countries. I mean, arguably America and
China are kind of the leading voices in AI development.
And so it's important for us to be able to, to have that, you
know, line basically open. And I would love to see that
line of communication open between our senior leaders,
right? Like I would love if the
president had a phone to the president, right?
And they, they could ensure that if something crazy like is going
on, that they, they could talk through it and make sure that it
wasn't some type of, you know, non state actor trying to
influence one party against the other using AI in some fashion
or deception that is powered by AI or right, like there's,
there's real concern here. And so I think it's important
that we have that conversation. And I, I very much think we're,
we're aligned as we're talking to them about this.
So that's one thing I wanted to mention.
I think when it comes to. Where we are.
I think the Air Force and yeah, sure, you could say the whole
Department of War, right. But I think the Air Force was
slow to appreciate and recognise large language models.
And I think that we've come around and that has been an
important pivot over the past couple years months really that
have allowed us to be, you know, more effective in that realm and
and getting these tools out to our our operators.
So that's been good. I think we rightfully are are
slowly making progress in AI being some somewhat enabled in
autonomous capability. So that could be, you know, our
deliberate focused development of AI agents in uncrewed
systems. So we're doing that work.
And I think it's been we've been learning a lot.
And now you also look at like AI at a higher end, like having the
ability to press that pickle button, like we're not there
yet. I don't know when we should get
there. I don't know if we should get
there because maybe we find something like, well, we really
need a human to have full control, even if we're in
contested environments, even if that means like we're going to
lose some ground or whatever, like we.
They need to make that decision as a country, as humanity.
I'm not sure, but the technology is going to be there.
We're trying to figure out now like how to how do we adopt AI
capability into these platforms. And you know, I think that that
we're making progress there. I don't want to, I don't want to
get into too many details, but I also don't want people to be
like scared that the military is like all about AI agents flying
about these aircraft. Like it is not.
It is autonomous functions with aspects of that autonomy being
AI enabled. And it's in the development
phase. So we are learning about how we
could possibly do this. I'm, I'm more interested in how
are we using AI to inform our decision makers about the battle
space. So that's from automatic target
recognition to summarization. Like that's just large language
models to image recreation and image recreation is very
powerful. So for instance, we don't have
weather radar that covers the whole world.
We have weather radar that covers certain aspects of, you
know, in America, at least in America and on our coast, but
not everywhere. And so is there a way for us to
use AI to bring in data from all of these weather satellites from
around the world to give us what a picture would possibly look
like about what that weather is? Yeah, right.
I think we could. So, you know, we're bringing in
these type of, you know, technologies and, and how do we
do that to make sure that once again, we're not getting, you
know, wrong. Information.
Poison information. Our adversaries, I, I think we
just need to be aware that if it's technologically possible to
do the things that I'm like, I'm not sure if we should do this,
but it's technologically possible to do it.
We have to assume that someone out there, and I'm not like
pointing fingers necessarily because it could be a non state
actor, but someone out there would be willing to do that,
right. So how do we mitigate that?
We may not be willing to put like robot dogs onto the battle
space. They can go shoot a gun, right,
But our adversary may and adversary I'm not.
I'm once. Again, I'm not talking.
About China, I'm just saying like anyone that wants to fight
us, right, So how do we make sure that we're also prepared
for that type of fight I think is important.
Siga, how much time you got? It's 10/2.
Oh yeah, I have another half hour.
Easy. OK, Yeah, in that case, let me
let me just ask you a couple more questions and then I'd like
to get on to, I'd like to get on talking about the book, but
yeah. So, so you flew the F35 and
you've referenced a couple of use cases for AII.
Wondered if you could tell us two things, what would your top
application for AI as an F35 guy have been?
And then also and perhaps these these two are related to each
other, Where would something like the loyal Wingman programme
be without AI? Could you do loyal wingman with
just autonomy? So 2 questions, but maybe
they're. Related to it, Yeah.
OK, so remind me too as I get through it.
You know, if I missed one of them.
Yeah, For the first one, looking at AI capability now and knowing
the jet, I think that it would be like I'm more of a take baby
steps and adopt AI in ways that are more predictable and they
don't have major consequences type of guy, right.
So I think using we have voice recognition in the F35, it's not
very good. It's not like Siri, which also
gets things wrong, of course, or Alexa, you know, but it is a
capability. We wouldn't rarely use it and it
wouldn't understand certain accents, which is always funny.
Like the test files from Kentucky, like they never
understood them. But we have that.
I would love to see that advanced to a degree where I
could do things with my voice using, you know, speech to text
kind of interaction and AI could be helpful for that, right?
Like that's not all AI, but AI could be helpful because it
could train on someone's voice and it could understand just
like Alexa trains on certain voices and and those like those
are the type of applications that I think would be great like
adopted. It's not going to have major
implications. It's just going to do this one
function for me. I think that there's also an
ability for AI in an F35 to more fully understand what is the
most effective way to do a tactic by using all of the data
from our training missions and saying, OK, hey, this is
actually the way that you should be doing this tactic compared to
the way that you're doing it now.
I think it could be very beneficial in that sense because
that's what it's good at. And maybe it would illuminate A
tactic or a path that we hadn't thought of before, like, oh,
I've always been, you know, approaching the enemy when I'm
at, you know, 20 miles apart from my wingman.
But now I should be doing it at at 50 feet from me.
I mean, I'm just making this up, but right.
Like it could possibly say, hey, do this differently, dummy.
So I think that would be interesting.
And I think also the adoption of autonomy that's beyond life
saving technology, life saving autonomy, life saving autonomy
is remarkable. But those were kind of baby
steps. When we talk about automatic
ground collision avoidance and automatic air collision
avoidance, those are baby steps to like offensive and defensive
autonomous capability. Like I want to fly a perfect dog
fighting scenario right now. Like can I turn on an AI agent
that helps me optimise my performance?
Or even like can I turn on an AI agent right now to allow me to
air refuel, you know, and and get that done very quickly.
That type of autonomy I think is going to require some AI and
those would be good implicate those would be good applications
because the human is still in control, just like auto G cast
or auto Acas. I can I can turn that off, but I
can use it to help me, you know, execute in in certain places.
So I think that's what I would think about when I'm looking to
like try to adopt AI solutions into the F35.
What was your second question? Loyal wingman.
So thank you. Could loyal wingman work with
just a a bunch of hard coded autonomy?
Absolutely, yeah. Loyal wingman could work to a
degree without any type of AII mean right now.
Like you'd argue that that is like what we're developing.
They're not all like the AI agent that we're testing in the
XQ 58 like we're doing other autonomy without AI agents.
So, yeah, absolutely. And could it still be effective?
Yeah, absolutely. I think the problem becomes in
certain scenarios that those autonomous systems will not be
as effective because they won't be able to deal with all the ifs
compared to all the then's, right?
Like the if then statements because it's just really complex
if you you're not going to be able to hard code into the
software all of the possible things that it could run into,
run into. I just mean like experience,
like maybe different signals or different, you know, aspects of
the sensor where maybe. It.
Doesn't have hard coded that if it gets this one signal that's
an enemy threat and it doesn't know that, so it doesn't respond
correctly when an AI agent could learn like, oh, that's a signal
that I don't know, but it's similar to this other signal.
And so I'm going to respond to it like it's in a threat, you
know, but the deterministic code may not, you know, be able to be
as responsive. So I think that that is what you
could absolutely do. You're just going to have
certain limitations and you're going to have to hard code into
it like if you lose communication with if the pilot
do these things, but that becomes complicated again,
right? So it's going to be limiting,
but not, not detrimental or you know, complete barrier to the
capability A. Final question for me on this
then and then I'd like to ask a couple of questions from my
audience. I have subscribers and one of
the same same as the final pilot podcast.
They can ask questions and I'll authorise it and then we'll,
we'll talk about your, your book.
But one of the things that you're seeing in, in discourse
today around commercial use of AI is deskilling of people.
You know, if you, let's say you use AI to write your website for
you and your marketing brochures or whatever, then you're
deskilling effectively. Or you're, the risk is you end
up deskilling your marketing workforce because then they
never learn how to write the brochures or whatever.
That's a just a random example. Does the same apply to the fast
jet community, to the tactical operator?
The idea that if AI becomes so embedded and entrenched in the
process of employing that the he or she will as the operator will
actually not have the ability to make judgments, not have the
skills and the experience and the ability to draw on their own
knowledge in order to determine what the correct course of
action is. And then if they've got the
hammer on the, you know, they've got the button on the, the
pickle button control of the pickle button, then their
judgement for for hitting that pickle button at the end of the
day may not be what it should be.
Is that a realistic or probabilistic thing?
I think your listeners and our society writ large need to
understand that there's always going to be disruptors to our
professions and creative destruction is going to happen
and is not a bad thing. It can be in the short term
detrimental to someone's life. Like it may impact their their
immediate work, it may impact prospects that they had.
So I think in general, it's good for us to accept like the
responsibility that we have to continue continually push
ourselves forward to learn about what's coming, to figure out how
that is going to play a part in our world, our profession,
whatever it may be, and to invest our time and our energy
into figuring out like, So what, like how is this going to be a
player for me? And then how am I going to
address it? So the answer to your question
is absolutely like it is going to have an impact, but how
detrimental or bad is that going to be?
I don't know, but I don't think any of us know.
But I do know through other things that have happened in our
society. So from the ATM example is
always a classic one. Like ATMs did not stop us
needing bankers, though they thought before they adopted them
that that was what was going to happen.
And you can look at like lots of different, you know, careers
that people thought was going to be impacted, though wasn't
necessarily it was impacted, but it didn't mean it was gone
forever. But I also think of aviation and
how it has kind of through the years changed what it means to
be a changed what it means to be a fighter pilot.
And I was having this conversation with someone
recently too, like, I think back before I had, you know, a God's
eye view. So, you know, as if God were
looking down and I had an image of where I am on a map, right?
Like we would have to figure out where we were in our brains by
cutting radials. I'd be like, OK, I'm at a 180
radial at 20 miles off of this frequency.
I need to like make sure I tune that frequency.
That's the right frequency. This is the right radial.
And then we'd have to like create a picture in our own
mind. And you bring in a, a picture, a
moving map where like you have the plane on the on the picture
and you're like, OK, that's where I am.
Did that, did that change a pilot's ability to perceive in
their own brain where they were in relation to Avor or tack an
using radios? Yeah, yeah.
Did that matter? Like no, like, like is the same
with data links. So now I have a, a picture of me
on a moving map and I bring in data links so I'm able to
communicate with my wingman and I'm able to see my wingman and
I'm able to effectively manage kind of our formation from this
moving map. I've, I've noticed that because
I was, I was here as we are transitioning to all of this
technology. I was in the fighter cockpit
doing it and I noticed that, yeah, pilots weren't as good at
certain things. They weren't as aware of
listening to the radio and being able to build the picture out
more effectively and they relied too much on the moving map and
the data links. But was that a bad thing?
Like, no. Fast forward a few years
transition like they're not as good at that, but they're good
at other things, right? And so now you bring in you
know, additional technology and you say, OK, I have an auto
throttle and I have an autopilot and I have an aircraft that's
really easy to land in the F35. Like what does it mean to be a
fighter pilot now? It's different than if I'm
flying AF15 than if I'm flying an F4, that if I'm flying AP 51,
right? And so we have to be able to,
you know, kind of grow with these these opportunities, these
changes. And yeah, there's certain things
that are worse, like pilots are going to be worse at landing if
if. If the system's always landing
for them. But at what?
Point is that going to be like dangerous or is it just like
this transition period to be able to adopt technology that is
going to be more effective? And yeah, it's classic like, OK,
well you take airline pilots and you replace them with computers
if or you augment them with computers, are are those airline
pilots going to be now less safe because they don't actually know
some of the things maybe to an extent, but maybe not maybe a
holistically they're actually going to be safer because the
combination of the two, the airline pilot with the
autonomous system or software AI agent, whatever actually make
them more effective. And so I, I think it's right for
us to be concerned and we need to think through that.
But I also, I think I'm more optimistic that we are going to
be able to work alongside this and we're going to be able to
create things that we didn't know and things are going to
change and in really cool ways. While at the same time we have
to address that there are going to be certain jobs that are
going to be changed because of it.
And it's like, you know, software coding is probably
never going to be the same. Marketing is probably never
going to be the same. Does it mean we're not going to
be marketing? No, I think we're just going to
be adopting this. Book editing and book publishing
is probably never going to be the same.
Right, like I will tell you, I told you I used editorial AI
tools for my book and when I gave my face like how few?
Errors there were. And it's not because I knew what
I was doing. It's because use is instead of
our. You know, wrong person here,
right? And so we can see that it is
changing it, but I think the editors is probably going to
have to change maybe their relationship.
With the the. Writer is going to be different
and maybe more advanced. Maybe they could help in certain
ways that now they have time to do that.
And so clearly very important topic, but I'm probably more on
the optimistic side that I think we can do this together because
I think humanity appreciates like working with a human.
And so we're not trying to stop that.
We're just trying to enhance it. OK, Cinco, let me ask you a
couple of questions from my audience then just give me a
SEC. Here we go then.
So this, this is just a quick couple of questions then for
you, Cinco, from my audience and there were, there were quite a
few. So I'm just going to cut them
down to just one or two for you. So, but Knox asked, with the
rapid advancement of open source models across various ML
disciplines, how much has the US Air Force been able to benefit?
And is there a requirement to author original models?
I think I think it's a benefit in general for these models to
be accessible though. I am like empathetic for sure
and mainly for security reasons of how these models we need to
be mindful of the weights that these companies are using
because that is not just proprietary, but I think can be
then manipulated to a way that would change the models in bad
ways. And so I I think one, it is
valuable to be able to communicate effectively and have
open source to a degree. As long as we are considering
non state actors and people that are really trying to do horrible
things throughout the world. The Air Force, I think in the
military would benefit from having instantiations that are
separated from that type of pipeline that goes back to a
company for many reasons. One, for security reasons,
mainly for security reasons. And then I think we need to
manage it so that we're able to ensure that we have more
governance over the systems. And I'm, I'm trying to think of
the word, but we basically want to make sure that we have
control over what is training a system and that how our inputs
or our questions are being protected so that, you know,
like you can learn a lot from if you go into someone's ChatGPT
query and figure out like what they're asking you, just like
you would learn a lot from going into Google's search bar.
And if the, you know, if the US government's employees are
searching, like what happens when I ran as, you know, like
you're giving, you're giving away information.
My point is, I'm not sure when this will air, but of course
we're we're closely watching what's going on in the Middle
East right now. But I just was using that as an
example of like, we don't want to give away information that is
not, you know, not to be given away.
Put it that way. So Matthew has asked.
So watching current conflicts, it sometimes appears as though
the technology becomes more and more advanced, but the most
effective countermeasures are becoming more and more
rudimentary. At what point does AI start
producing diminishing returns? And in the AI digital world, how
do you defend against analogue threats?
That's a really interesting question, I think.
I think what we're seeing is a big transition going on in
different careers in different, different aspects of of society.
And why I say that is, I do think that, yes, you may find
that there's ways to counter using like legacy or analogue
approaches, but I don't think that those will actually last
because I think AI can be taught or learn to effectively address
that as it matures. And so I don't want to be
doomsday or anything. I'm just saying like, yeah, the
best example or an example of maybe not the best, this idea of
a Centaur. So it, it's kind of like, you
know, half human, half horse. AI beat Garry Kasparov at chess
in what, 97 or something. And over the ensuing years that
followed, AI was very good at chess and humans were good at
chess, and AI could beat a human.
But if an AI and a human worked together, and it was for a long
period of time, you know, over a decade, if they work together,
they would together both beat an AI agent or together both beat a
human. But then as AI continued to go
at the speed in which it's going, it would no longer need a
human at all. It just is able to beat
everyone. Like there's no chance a human
has. So it's a Centaur.
It's a transition. Like, at what point are you the
Centaur together or that you don't need?
And I do feel like if we have a mentality of, oh, we're going to
be able to defeat AI by doing this, that that is not
necessarily going to be true in a year or two years, five years,
10 years from now. We are just starting the AI
revolution. It is really, I mean, I really
believe that it's the tip of an iceberg, like we're just
scraping out because large language models are cute and
that's what we've been living in for the past few years.
But when AI really meets physical autonomous systems,
that's going to change lots of things.
So I don't think we're there yet fully.
We're starting to see it with cars, right?
That's why Tesla's able to be effective.
And that's going to change quite a bit, especially as cyber taxi,
cyber cab come out soon. I think that's going to change
when Optimist comes out. And I'm not like here as a Tesla
commercial, but you know, those are kind of the best examples
that people see. I think AI with the physical
systems is going to actually revolutionise even more and not
just like doing your dishes for you or folding your laundry, but
like having a meaningful, you know, part of our medical
fields. Our some of our blue collar work
that is going on from like stocking warehouses to moving
things to driving vehicles or right like there's going to be a
lot of that. And so I don't think we're at
the point yet where we're worried about a diminishing
return because we haven't even seen really.
Like the the. Future that's about to unfold,
which is pretty remarkable. Scary moments, exciting and
moments for us to help define. So this question is from Biggles
Tinton, he says, I know most Western nations have strict
policies on the usage of AI. You kind of touched on this, but
you know, I'll ask anyway. Do you think that as in in the
result of a a major war, a lot of those limitations would be
reduced to help win? I think that there are certain
lines we should never cross right?
And especially with like AI interfacing with nuclear
decision making, like it just should never happen.
I mean, nuclear war is a losing proposition for all parties,
horrible for humanity. And I think there's aspect of an
AI engagement that could also turn into the same thing, loss
of control of systems. And those are, these are
concerns. So I think there's a reality
that there's certain lines never to be crossed.
Now that there's this, there's this grey area of like, well,
would we in a situation do this? And you can you almost have to
imagine that world of like, well, if we're backed into a
corner, what would we do? What would we expect from an
adversary? What would we expect from
ourselves? And I would hope that we can
agree to not do certain things. And I think we've as a like a, a
world decided like that we're not going to use certain types
of land mines, right? That we're not going to use
certain type of biological weapons that we're not going to
right. And so I think we can put
certain limits on it. I think we need to be very
mindful of when we're willing to adopt some of the capability.
We don't want to adopt it when it's immature.
We don't want to have to be forced into a situation because
I think that something bad could or would happen.
And so I think it's a it's important question that I don't
think there's a clear answer on other than we have to understand
our own humanity and look at our past and, and appreciate that we
may be tempted to do something hasty.
We may be tempted to use a last resort.
I mean, imagine the entire world is going to be taken over by a
horrible dictator like Hitler or something, right?
Like what tools would we be willing to use to stop that from
happening? And I think we have to try to
almost think through that now because it would like it's
important question. I don't know.
I don't know what the answer is, but I think we have to be real
with trying to think through it. So, guy, I could carry on
talking with you about this for, for many more hours and I've got
loads more questions, but I won't, I won't put you through
that because that would, that would not give us time to talk
about your book, which I equally want to discuss with you.
I really enjoyed reading it. So it's called unlocking the
last 20% and it draws on, we said right at the beginning of
this conversation, you talked about it a tiny bit draws on
many of your experiences going through childhood.
I, I was really interested to hear you talk about the letter
you'd, your dad had written. You, you know, you, I think you,
you titled the chapter Disappointing my father.
I think that's how you title it. And you go through all the way
through then being homeschooled, then going to university,
getting into the Air Force, flying the Eagle, standing up
the MC 12, and then, and then eventually becoming a test
pilot. And you illustrate then all of
these points that you have with experiences that you that taught
you those things. So I, so I, I guess that the
first question I wanted to ask you about it was, was what
inspired you to do it? Why?
Why did you write it? Well, thank you for one reading
it. You're one of the few people who
have read it. I originally started writing
down stories over a decade ago because I lost my father when I
was 21 to cancer, and we had a great relationship.
I learned a lot from him, but there were so many questions I
didn't get to ask him that I didn't even know to ask him
because I was so young. And so I started writing things
down in order to capture some of my thoughts and perspectives for
my children. And then as it kind of coalesced
and came together, I felt like, you know, some of my stories are
pretty crazy, and a lot of them are failures, by the way.
But I'm still here and I, I figured there was maybe
something in the way that I think about life or that I've
gone through life or experienced certain things that that could
build on someone's perspectives to help them deal with
challenges that they're facing, a failure that they're facing,
or even like what is their purpose?
And how do they kind of approach becoming the person they want to
become? Right.
And, and so that was kind of the catalyst was my kids and turned
into an opportunity, I think, to, to share stories and, and
try to kind of give a perspective that I think is
needed in this time and age. Because there's so many
distractions and there's so many things going on that I think I
think people are kind of saturated with the story of
like, you need to pick yourself back up or you need to go like,
you just need to try harder. Or it's like this individual
focus. And I start with this individual
focus of the book, but it's, it's really about like community
and it's about who we surround ourselves with.
And it's about love and it's about like resiliency.
And I, I, I wanted to be able to kind of share that perspective
to be somewhat of a counterbalance to, I think what
we often hear, which is just like try harder.
Yeah, I like it in the, in the sense that it has a lot of
practicality around it. I mean, you, you talk about
mindfulness, you describe visualising things.
I've always found, found that, you know, not, not that I have
ever unlocked my last 20%, but I've always found that
visualising myself being something or doing something is,
is very helpful in, in getting me to, to the point where maybe
I'll, I'll make that happen. One of the things that does come
through both in your introduction and then in, at the
end where you, where you provide acknowledgements is, is the
importance of, of your faith and your family to you.
I, I, I read when I was reading the chapter where you talk about
flying the F15 on an A120 test and you've got to do mark 2.5
and you've got to push negative 3GS could hold it there for a
long time. You describe how as a test
pilot, your job is to go into the unknown.
And, and so there were two things that struck me about
that. The first was I thought I would
have been absolutely petrified. I mean, it, it sounds proper
scary what you, what you had to do on that test.
And I'm sure that was just one of many, but then this sort of
disconnect between doing that and then having this family at
home and the, the risk for you having it all on the line in
the, the risk for them as well. And I suppose one of the
questions I wanted to ask you was, was how you manage that?
How do you, how do you go through life with a very
obviously a very ordered and logical mind and the ability to
really understand what it is that you're doing and the risks
that you're taking and have this beautiful family and, and, and,
and juggle the two things? Yeah.
Well, I'd, I'd start off by saying our profession, test
professional, test pilot and test engineers are part of that
and test sizzles and wizzles are all amazing.
It's really not about taking risk, it's about mitigating risk
and learning how to push the boundaries in a very deliberate,
methodical and safe fashion. With that being said, yes, we
are doing things in planes that are not always, that are not
typical, put it that way, that sometimes have never been done.
And we're, we're doing that because we and I have a passion
and a purpose to drive to try to ensure our war fighter is
prepared for whatever they may be called to do.
Which means they need systems, they need weapons and aircraft
that are going to work the way that they're supposed to work.
And we need people that are able to go out there and ensure that
that is going to happen. And I've always wanted to serve.
I never knew it was going to look like my parents were
firefighters. My mom was a paramedic on top of
that. And they served and they taught
me a lot through their service. And I didn't want, I mentioned
earlier, I never planned on joining the military, but I did
have this desire to serve. And so when I, right before
going to college, Saving Private Ryan came out and when I went
and saw that movie and it is very, it was very impactful.
And oh, by the way, like I love Braveheart was my favourite
movie for years. So it was also this idea of like
fighting for freedom. And the same Private Ryan comes
out and you're like, OK, you know, what we have here is to be
celebrated and is not free, right?
It took millions upon millions of people throughout our history
and Western civilization of people sacrificing.
And that could be for causes, yes, from World War 2.
But you go back and back, and not just in America, right, In
England and other countries, like people have been
sacrificing in, in a way that is really beautiful and meaningful.
And so for me, I knew I wanted to serve.
And as I started serving, like this seemed to be the natural
way to do it. And we have calls, right?
And, and the call that was on my heart was to serve in this
fashion, this capacity. And I think I would be doing a
disservice to myself and to my family if I didn't, if, if I
didn't go out the door and pursue something that was
greater than myself, that was more meaningful and not playing
it safe per SE, but living my life to the fullest.
And, and that is, I think where joy is found, where true peace
is found, where fulfilment is found.
And so like it, it, it was never a question of like, I'm going to
do this. Is it worth it for, you know,
the risk of my life? Like we, we need to be able to
live our lives. But that does play into my faith
a little bit too. Like, let me be clear.
And this book is not a, it's not a Christian book or anything.
My faith is really important to me.
And it is a Christian faith. And I found it later in life,
you know, but that's beside the point.
The point is talking about our spiritual pillar, like
connecting in deeper spiritually is really important.
And I do think we do a disservice and not talking about
it more. The problem becomes I don't
think a lot of people know how to talk about it without
proselytising, without like whatever they believe,
proselytising that belief. And just like connecting with
people and appreciating like people's journeys, like that's
their journey and that's what they're going on.
And why I bring it up even in this conversation is for me, I
have a belief in Providence that I think things happen for a
reason. I don't know if I know what
those reasons are. And that reason may be me dying,
right? Like I may go through something
and the outcome is me like not making it.
But I think that there's still a grander purpose behind that.
So maybe that's, you know, through my death, you know,
someone else's journey is being formed and right, like, I don't
know where that line is. I'm not sure.
Like I'm not God, right? Like I'm just, I'm, I'm here to
serve and, and living my life in that fashion.
So that also makes my risk calculus or my approach to like,
what should I be doing? Like really centred on something
much bigger than myself. That's very interesting because
I think that so I would absolutely agree with you.
The book is not a, a preachy book.
That's not, you're not a proponent for Christianity in
that sense. You're not trying to convert
people to, to, to your, your, your faith.
So that that should be absolutely clear.
I mean, the, the, the book has warmth and it has humility and
yourself deprecating and self effacing.
I think those are qualities you don't normally see from fighter
pilots. You know, you, you put your
hands up and say, I screwed this up and this is the lesson I
learned from it. And that's the theme through the
book and the things that you didn't do well and, and the fact
that then even when you succeed, your failures can still be on
your mind. You talked about that aim, that
shooting the aim 9 from the F35 and the pickle button.
And that's a so I would, I would absolutely recommend that people
buy the book and, and read it, even if, I mean, if, if you just
want call aviation stories, they're in there.
So it's a, it's a mix of both those things.
Tell, tell us a little bit about how people can get hold of it.
Is it going to be on Amazon? At the moment?
I've read a pre pre release copy, digital copy.
I haven't got a physical copy but can they go and buy it on
Amazon and will it be in the bookstores?
Yeah, no thank you. You can go to my website,
tuckerhamilton.com. It's super easy, Tucker
hamilton.com and there's ways that you can click on that links
to go buy the book. You can find them.
Amazon UK has it. Amazon and America has it.
Barnes and Noble. Yeah, it's basically where
wherever you usually get books, Audible has audio version that
is also publishing on the 24th of March.
And yeah, I'd love to hear from people like your thoughts,
listeners like what they think, if they have other questions.
You can reach me on Tucker hamilton.com and just ask me
questions. I try to be very open,
transparent about like my life and my perspective.
I just, I will always caveat that it's a biassed perspective,
right? Like it's mine and it's
definitely not for everyone. Or I'm like my, my truth that I
may imagine is right for someone may not be their truth right
like that. Like like I said, we all have
our own journey, but I'm happy to to share in.
Yeah, I'd love for people to to tell me what they think.
And I really appreciate you allowing me to come share.
You know some of my stories. Thank you so much for for being
on the channel and it's been a pleasure speaking to you.
I do hope that when you're not too busy on fronting the the
Fire podcast, you'll come back on and talk about MC 12 standing
up and being a test pilot and flying a 35 and being
responsible for a 35 test at Edwards.
That sounds amazing. So hopefully you'll come back on
and do that. But I wish you the very best of
luck with the book. It is.
It's a really good. Oh no, I I was gonna please tell
me more about positive things. I was gonna interrupt and just
say I should really quick and I have to run here in a second as
you do as well. But I should really quick tell
you my call sign story. Oh, I thought you were gonna
make me buy you because you said you're gonna drink, but I.
No, I could do it. I could do it on.
I'll do it for your. Where does it come from?
Yeah, yeah. So it is in the book.
So you can go. You can go by and read the book
too. So there I was and we get call
signs by either like a natural or a natural is like I have a
buddy, this last name is Stevens and so his call sign is Even
Stevens, even Stevens. Or I have a buddy's last name is
Abel and his call sign is Kanan. So Cain and Abel or you know
like naturals or you do something stupid and mine's the
latter. That is the typical of what you
get from people. So there I was, brand new
wingman. I was flying on the wing of my
flight lead and we are doing air to air combat training.
So we're going out the door and there are two of us against, you
know, a number of bad guys. And we're, we're supposed to
like get the bad guys out and, you know, kill all the bad guys
out in front of us and then go to a target area, protect the
target. The bad guys are just other
people from our squadron that fly against us and emulate being
a threat either way. So we shoot our missiles at the
bad guys and we turn sideways and we wait for our missiles to
do their work. They're Amrams, so you know,
they, they're able to go finish the job as we're sideways and
then we turn back into the target area.
And if people aren't watching this online, I will describe
this, this position or this manoeuvre.
Part of me puts me in this situation because I'm this
aircraft, it puts me out of position, but I still see my
flight lead. And so my flight leads like 2
one's blind. I don't see you, which just
means like blind, like I don't see you.
OK, number one, I'm at your left 7:00, five miles, which just
means I'm at the, you know, clock position. 12:00 is right
off your nose, 6:00 behind you left. 7:00, five miles, which
means I'm out of position. But I still see him.
So he has some assurances that I'm, I'm getting back in
position. So I start getting back into
position. 30 seconds goes by and he's like, you know, 2.
I still don't see where you at. I'm like one, I'm I'm right of
your left wing now. 9:00 five miles.
I'll bring it in because we usually fly closer than 5 miles,
but we don't fly that close. It's still a couple miles away.
It's still hard to see each other for sure. 5 miles is
really hard to see someone else. But I'm, I'm, I'm seeing him.
He's like all right, 30 seconds goes by two, I still don't see
you. OK, one, I'm at your left, nine
O clock in position now, right where I'm supposed to be.
Still doesn't see me. So I start moving closer.
He's like 2-2. Where are you?
I still don't see you, man. One, I'm at your left, you know,
9 O clock now one mile with a flash.
So I start rocking my wings back and forth like it's hard to see
jet that isn't rocking the wings, but easy to see as you
flash your wing. He's he doesn't see me still.
I'm getting upset. He's getting upset.
And I'm like, I'm right here. I'm rocking my wing. 30 seconds
goes by. He's like 2.
Where are you? And I'm getting close and I'm
like 3000 feet and I'm like one, I'm, I'm right off your left
wing. I'm, I'm rocking my wings and
I'm flaring. I'm start dropping flares behind
me like fireworks. There's a pause on the radio. 2,
Are you flying off one of the bad guys we killed out?
And I looked down at the screen that I had in front of me the
entire time. This screen was in front of me
and I am 60 miles away from my flight lead.
Because what I did was when we turned sideways to shooter
missiles, I saw one of the bad guys that we killed out turned
southbound basically, and I just flew off of his wing.
This entire time I'm flying off the wrong person's wing.
My flight lead is all alone. He's getting close to the target
area and he's like 2 get back in position, you know, like just
furious. And I'm like what the worst
pilot ever and I plug it into 5 stages of afterburner to race
back into position to get on onto his wing and I get there
Afterburner is amazing. But the the problem with
afterburner is you use all your fuel when you do that.
So I rejoined on his wing and we're supposed to be there for
like 15 minutes and I am out of fuel within 10 seconds.
I don't even do a complete turn. My bingo light goes on and says
bingo fuel, which means I have to immediately return to base.
And he's just like, get out of here.
Like just totally pissed. But so many lessons, like 1, I
made this mistake. I got channelized like looking
at him that looking at the wrong aircraft the entire time instead
of just looking down at a scope that I had in front of me.
And I'm getting upset with him when I was really the one that
was, you know, and we do that often, right?
Like we, we cause problems or problems happen to us as well.
And we find ourselves in a situation where I'm like, and
what did I do? Like the completely wrong thing
to do, which was use all my fuel to get back in position where I
should have just, you know, gone fast.
But not gone like afterburner fast to get back in position.
I would have had enough fuel then to continue the mission.
And so they, they gave me the call sign Cinco.
So Uno, Uno dos tres cuatro Cinco 55 stages of afterburner
is as fast as you can go in the F15C.
And they, they gave me Cinco for flying around in five stages of
AB for too long. So there's my, my stupid, stupid
Cinco story. That's brilliant.
So good. Thank you so much for sharing
that with us. Thank you for sharing your
thoughts and your experiences on AI.
Thank you for bringing the book to us.
I hope people buy it. I hope they do feedback to you.
It's brilliant to read. I wish you the best of luck with
it and good luck with the final pilot podcast and come back on
the channel and see me again when you when you've got time.
Yeah, fantastic. Thank you so much.
All right, all my best.