Something I've pondered about is impact on AI piloting on existing force balance. Not a subject matter expert, but in my mind, a plane minus pilot is basically an extremely performant missile with vastly superior flight envelope and sensors. My Q is whether AI airforce would eventually nullify anti-air technology. Are we inching towards a future where conflicts will have mutual air superiority because fighters cannot be effectively shot down because limited magazine depth i.e. a carrier group simply will not possess enough anti-air weapons to interdict. not to mention economics - recent data on cost of some of the missile systems is pretty outrageous. Some are just conversion kit costs.
There was a interesting discussion on how difficult U2s were to fly from this week.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25411547
Something I've pondered about is impact on AI piloting on existing force balance. Not a subject matter expert, but in my mind, a plane minus pilot is basically an extremely performant missile with vastly superior flight envelope and sensors. My Q is whether AI airforce would eventually nullify anti-air technology. Are we inching towards a future where conflicts will have mutual air superiority because fighters cannot be effectively shot down because limited magazine depth i.e. a carrier group simply will not possess enough anti-air weapons to interdict. not to mention economics - recent data on cost of some of the missile systems is pretty outrageous. Some are just conversion kit costs.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/38102/here-is-what-eac...
Also 37M per SM3 block IIA used in the recent ballistic missile shoot down O_o.