AI Snapshot: PIZZANATOR; Intergalatic Sea Shanties? DARPA Dogfighting #11

Tags: ai, machinelearning, newsletter, nvidia
Published: 2021-03-29 22:14:47

*`Issue #11 of the `[`Infinite Waves`](https://infinitewaves.substack.com/about)` Newsletter`*

*AI snapshot is the Monday issue of the [Infinite Waves newsletter.](https://infinitewaves.substack.com/) AI news, developments, and points of interest from the previous week.*

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### Feature:

DARPA Artificial Intelligence dogfighting
=========================================

[![](https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0f396834-621f-4ce3-ae15-0747e00d2a8f_1528x804.png)](https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0f396834-621f-4ce3-ae15-0747e00d2a8f_1528x804.png)

Are we not already good enough at killing things and blowing stuff up, really? We need AI to help us kill each other better? But let's face it, the military are already deep into AI and there is exactly zero chance they'll decelerate their efforts in employing it [any time soon](https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2021/03/26/2199982/0/en/The-Worldwide-Artificial-Intelligence-in-Military-Industry-is-Expected-to-Reach-11-6-Billion-by-2025.html).

#### Doggyfighting DARPA 🐶 🔫 🛩

The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has a programme it likes to call Air Combat Evolution (ACE, obviously). As part of this programme they have been running simulations that pit AI-controlled fighters against each other in aerial combat know as 'dogfighting'.

They ran a very unfair 2 vs 1 simulation, two 'friendly' [Lockheed Martin F-16s](https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/products/f-16.html) versus a single 'enemy' F-16 (poor AI needs some damn backup).

#### What's the ultimate aim?

DARPA expects to see unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) taking care of dogfighting autonomously, leaving human pilots to concentrate on "**higher-cognitive battle manager decisions**" (So... they'll be playing COD?). DARPA is attempting to show that Artificial Intelligence-controlled UAVs can be trusted in the sky battles.

#### What's Lieutenant (Colonel) Dan got to say about it?

[![](https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Faa7d025a-267d-4418-a8ca-4f8efbede101_660x373.jpeg)](https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Faa7d025a-267d-4418-a8ca-4f8efbede101_660x373.jpeg)

> *"These new engagements represent an important step in building trust in the algorithms since they allow us to assess how the [artificially intelligent] agents handle clear avenue of fire restrictions set up to prevent fratricide,"*
>
> **Colonel Dan Javorsek - Programme manager in DARPA's Strategic Technology Office**
>
> *"This is exceedingly important when operating with offensive weapons in a dynamic and confusing environment that includes a manned fighter, and also affords the opportunity to increase the complexity and teaming associated with manoeuvring two aircraft in relation to an adversary."*

#### Sorry Tom, automation is coming for your job too

Does this mean there is going to be an all-Artifical Intelligence Top Gun 3 cast, without Tom Cruise? *Without-Tom-Cruise?* I don't think the one-liners will sound half as good in binary, but that's just me.

### News 📰

-   **Did robot pizza delivery drivers just become sentient?** 🍕 No, not quite. The Pizzanator isn't gonna show up at your door any time soon (cheesy joke, literally). But Dominos Pizza *has* taken a slice from the AI world by using services provided by the AI company [Datatron](https://www.datatron.com/) (sounds (d)ominous 😳).

[![](https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F78866b6d-fa96-416c-b3f6-7416d8f8e24f_1200x1207.png)](https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F78866b6d-fa96-416c-b3f6-7416d8f8e24f_1200x1207.png)

It will allow Domino's to improve functionality and optimisation with its AI models, with the main aims being to improve in-store operations, find untapped revenue opportunities, and enhance the customer experience.

> *"Machine learning models can provide significant value to an organization in several business applications, but without a solid ML operations pipeline, that value cannot be truly realized."*

**Zack Fragoso** - Data science and AI at Domino's (Manager)

This story came from a site called [Pizza Marketplace](https://flex-logix.com/). Who'd have known such a thing existed? The "*premier online destination for C-level pizza executive leadership seeking cutting-edge intelligence for their multiunit restaurant concepts*", according to their site, fascinating. Anybody else feeling hungry now?

[Share](%%share_url%%)

-   **Will NVIDIA be shaking in their graphically processed boots?** Probably not, but [Flex Logix](https://flex-logix.com/) will be looking to steal some marketshare with a cool $55m in Series D funding. The battleground is "inference at the edge", where a trained neural network is used on a device to make actual predictions. Geoff Tate, Chief Executive, said *"the company can be successful both licensing its intellectual property to other chip designers, as it already does, or via sales of its forthcoming inference chip, the InferX X1."*

-   **Choo Choo, railway company's savings are off the rails.** 🚂 Network Rail have [made cost savings of ~£30m](https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/how-network-rail-is-saving-millions-by-using-machine-learning-25-03-2021/?tkn=1) , thanks to the use of machine learning. Not too shabby. The company utilised the construction risk forecasting platform [nPlan](https://www.nplan.io/) to help it make the savings.

-   **Bringing history to life**. Nathan Shipley, a San Francisco-based artist, has produced some pretty freaky (but kinda cool) images of historical figures using AI, to show what they might have looked like in the flesh. The figures in question lived before the advent of photography, but I'm sure Henry the VIII would have loved the Polaroid camera, because it's so easy to cut off heads.

    [![](https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F589f6f2e-f899-4ef7-b6bf-538b79327920_2262x1116.png)](https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F589f6f2e-f899-4ef7-b6bf-538b79327920_2262x1116.png)

    Ludwig van Beethoven (I think he'd be pleased with that)

    [![](https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ffc730615-ba3a-4935-9a5b-040dbac6f279_2266x1124.png)](https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ffc730615-ba3a-4935-9a5b-040dbac6f279_2266x1124.png)

    You know who she is - NGL I thought she'd be hotter

    [![](https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F64585586-db0e-489c-a825-6f96a073894a_2256x1114.png)](https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F64585586-db0e-489c-a825-6f96a073894a_2256x1114.png)

    Bill (Bailey) Shakespeare

    Photo credits: [Nathan Shipley](http://www.nathanshipley.com/)

    See the [full list on My Modern Met](https://mymodernmet.com/nathan-shipley-historical-ai-portraits/)

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### Tweet of the week 🐦

A bit of curve ball from my boy Lex Fridman, the MIT AI researcher and podcaster:


{% twitter 1375530446193311744 %}

How do you explain to that alien kid what a Sea Shanty is? They don't even know what the *sea* is. Although, they'll probably have VR headsets so maybe they'll be playing pirate simulator and know all about the seven seas. 🌊

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### Something free 🙌

[![Machine learning and artificial intelligence event](https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1dd15348-638e-4376-b5da-779376a41c1d_2286x640.png)](https://aiworldwide.datarobot.com/?utm_source=kdnuggets&utm_medium=3rdpartypromoter&utm_campaign=AIXWW0521-KDN)

[Event website](https://aiworldwide.datarobot.com/?utm_source=kdnuggets&utm_medium=3rdpartypromoter&utm_campaign=AIXWW0521-KDN)

DataRobot's AI Experience Worldwide is a **free **virtual conference for those seeking AI success. We're bringing together business leaders and data scientists to share insights on building an agile AI-driven enterprise.

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***Sources:***

**[The Worldwide Artificial Intelligence in Military Industry is Expected to Reach $11.6 Billion by 2025](https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2021/03/26/2199982/0/en/The-Worldwide-Artificial-Intelligence-in-Military-Industry-is-Expected-to-Reach-11-6-Billion-by-2025.html)**

**[Domino's, Datatron partnership amps up AI, machine learning forecasting](https://www.pizzamarketplace.com/news/dominos-datatron-partnership-amps-up-ai-ml-assisted-forecasting/)**

**[Flex Logix has two paths to making a lot of money challenging Nvidia in AI](https://www.zdnet.com/article/flex-logix-has-two-paths-to-making-a-lot-of-money-challenging-nvidia-in-ai/)**

**[Artist Uses AI To Recreate How Famous Historical Figures Would Look Like in Real Life](https://mymodernmet.com/nathan-shipley-historical-ai-portraits/)**

**[How Network Rail is saving millions by using machine learning](https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/how-network-rail-is-saving-millions-by-using-machine-learning-25-03-2021/?tkn=1)**

**[The Hunt For Transformational Growth event](https://aiworldwide.datarobot.com/?utm_source=kdnuggets&utm_medium=3rdpartypromoter&utm_campaign=AIXWW0521-KDN)**