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Two American Air Force fighter airplanes recently flew into the sky above California.
最近，两架美国空军战斗机飞入加利福尼亚州上空。
The military planes were taking part in training, practicing a wartime maneuver called a dogfight.
这些军用飞机正在参加训练，练习一种名为混战的战时演习。
One of the planes had a human pilot inside.
其中一架飞机上有一名人类飞行员。
The other did not.
另一位则没有。
It was operated by artificial intelligence, or AI, software.
它是由人工智能或AI软件操作的。
A human was in the airplane's other seat.
飞机的另一个座位上坐着一个人。
The Air Force was demonstrating how far its AI piloting technology has come.
空军正在展示其人工智能驾驶技术已经取得了多大的进步。
The United States is competing to stay ahead of China on AI and its use in weapon systems.
美国正在竞相在人工智能及其在武器系统中的使用方面保持领先于中国。
The focus on AI has led to public concern.
对人工智能的关注引起了公众的关注。
People worry that future wars will be fought by machines that choose and strike targets without direct human intervention.
人们担心，未来的战争将由选择和打击目标的机器进行，而不需要人类的直接干预。
The U.S. has said it would never send a pilotless fighter plane into war because of concerns that civilians could be harmed mistakenly.
美国曾表示，永远不会派遣无人驾驶战斗机参战，因为担心平民可能会受到意外伤害。
But it is unclear if other countries have the same policy.
但目前还不清楚其他国家是否也有同样的政策。
So the U.S. is working on AI piloting technology, just in case.
因此，美国正在研究人工智能驾驶技术，以防万一。
Admiral Christopher Grady is vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top U.S. military leadership group.
克里斯托弗·格雷迪上将是美国最高军事领导小组--参谋长联席会议副主席。
When speaking about the use of AI in war, he said: "China's working on it as hard as we are."
在谈到人工智能在战争中的使用时，他说：“中国正在和我们一样在努力。
Here is a look at the U.S. history of machine learning and AI in the military.
以下是美国机器学习和人工智能在军事中的历史。
The military started putting computers in control of some systems in the 1960s and 1970s.
军方在20世纪60年代和70年代开始让计算机控制一些系统。
The Aegis missile defense system was programmed by humans.
宙斯盾导弹防御系统是由人类编程的。
They gave the system a set of "if/then" commands because the computer could detect incoming missiles faster than humans.
他们给了该系统一套“如果/然后”的命令，因为计算机可以比人类更快地探测来袭导弹。
The system could not learn, it could only carry out the rules.
系统不能学习，它只能执行规则。
So it was not AI as we understand it today, said Christopher Berardi, an Air Force Lt.
因此，这不是我们今天所理解的人工智能，空军中尉克里斯托弗·贝拉迪谈到。
Colonel who is working with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on AI development.
他与麻省理工学院(MIT)合作开发人工智能。
AI took a step forward in 2012 when faster computer processors started to analyze information and write rules.
2012年，当速度更快的计算机处理器开始分析信息和编写规则时，人工智能向前迈进了一步。
Computer experts call that period "the big bang" for AI.
计算机专家将这一时期称为人工智能的“大爆炸”。
The new data created by a computer is considered artificial intelligence.
由计算机创建的新数据被认为是人工智能。
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall was the human on board the F-16 fighter jet called Vista.
空军部长弗兰克·肯德尔是这架名为Vista的F-16战斗机上的人。
The Vista jet is the most visible AI project, but the U.S. Department of Defense has hundreds in place.
Vista喷气式飞机是最引人注目的人工智能项目，但美国国防部已经有数百个项目。
One project going on at MIT includes recordings of Air Force pilots speaking with people in air operations centers on the ground.
麻省理工学院正在进行的一个项目包括空军飞行员与地面空中作战中心的人交谈的录音。
Service members are training the AI systems to detect the most important conversations and separate them from mundane chatter.
服役人员正在训练人工智能系统来检测最重要的对话，并将它们与平凡的聊天区分开来。
The plan is to use AI to alert pilots to critical messages.
该计划是使用人工智能来提醒飞行员关键信息。
The Air Force is also working on an AI-powered navigation system that does not depend on satellites.
空军还在研究一种不依赖卫星的人工智能导航系统。
The concern is that satellites could be targeted in war.
令人担忧的是，卫星可能会在战争中成为目标。
So instead of using satellite navigation, the Air Force is working on a navigation system that uses the magnetic fields of the Earth.
因此，空军不再使用卫星导航，而是致力于开发一种使用地球磁场的导航系统。
The idea is not new, but before AI, experts worried that navigation systems would not work due to the electromagnetic signal created by most aircraft.
这个想法并不新鲜，但在人工智能出现之前，专家们担心，由于大多数飞机产生的电磁信号，导航系统将无法工作。
But programmers are training an AI system to ignore the signal created by the airplane and instead pay attention to the Earth's magnetic emissions.
但程序员正在训练一个AI系统，让它忽略飞机产生的信号，转而关注地球的磁发射。
Col.Garry Floyd is head of the Air Force-MIT Artificial Intelligence Accelerator Program.
科罗.加里·弗洛伊德是空军-麻省理工学院人工智能加速器项目的负责人。
He said magnetometers are so sensitive they would pick up the signal from flashing lights on a C-17 airplane.
他说，磁力计非常灵敏，可以从C-17飞机上的闪光中接收到信号。
Floyd called the work so far, "very, very impressive."
弗洛伊德称到目前为止的工作“非常、非常令人印象深刻”。
"We think we may have added an arrow to the quiver in the things we can do, should we end up operating in a GPS-denied environment."
“我们认为，如果我们最终在一个GPS被拒绝的环境中运营，我们可能已经在我们能做的事情中增加了一支箭。我们会的。“弗洛伊德说。
The system has only been tested on the C-17 so far.
到目前为止，该系统只在C-17上进行了测试。
There are some limits to what AI can do.
人工智能的能力是有一些限制的。
So there is always a human safety pilot on board.
因此，飞机上总是有一名人类安全飞行员。
For example, AI cannot learn in mid-flight.
例如，人工智能不能在飞行中途学习。
It can only learn from the data it collects each time the plane is in the air.
它只能通过每次飞机在空中飞行时收集的数据来学习。
When the plane is back on the ground, the new information is loaded into a simulator and the AI system learns and creates more flight rules.
当飞机返回地面时，新信息被加载到模拟器中，人工智能系统学习并创建更多飞行规则。
But unlike in the past, AI now learns fast.
但与过去不同的是，人工智能现在学习速度很快。
Today's computers have more power than ever before and sometimes the AI system learns new ways to fly the planes.
今天的计算机比以往任何时候都更强大，有时人工智能系统会学习驾驶飞机的新方法。
Sometimes it can beat human pilots in tests.
有时它可以在测试中击败人类飞行员。
But there are still "guardrails."
但仍有“障碍”。
AI may learn a new way to fly a plane, but a human observer will prevent the computer from transferring the details on how to do an unsafe maneuver in the air.
人工智能可能会学习一种新的驾驶飞机的方法，但人类观察员会阻止计算机传递如何在空中进行不安全操作的细节。
The Air Force said it hopes the system it is working on today can be used to create a fleet of 1,000 unpiloted airplanes.
空军表示，希望今天正在研发的系统可以用来创建一支1000架无人驾驶飞机的机队。
