RE: [FT]SML question

--- agoodall@canada.com wrote:
> On Mon, 18 June 2001, "David Rodemaker" wrote:
...
> It's at this point I hear two comments: 1) humans
> are "unpredictable"; 2) gravitational compensators
> will make g-forces inconsequential.
> 
> In answer to 1: humans aren't THAT undpredictable.
> In fact, a lot of fields (marketing, social science,
> polling -- *ahem* --) are based on that fact. 

Humans are predictable in the LARGE not the SMALL.
In other words, you might predict how many people
will buy crest toothpaste or how many will vote
for candidate A, but you can't predict how I 
personally will vote. One on one, predicting how
a particular fighter pilot will react will still
be tough.

...

> In answer to 2: an anti-gravity/anti-inertia device,
> assuming that they are feasible, will still need to
> use some form of energy. Unless the device also
> manages to break the law of conservation of energy,
> they will probably have to expend energy in
> proportion to the gravity or inertia they are
> compensating against. By this argument, it would
> take less energy to make 25 gees feel like 20 gees
> than make 25 gees feel like 2 gees. In other words,
> being able to handle a greater gee load will still
> give the machine the edge, even if it's just in
> energy expenditure.
> 

Yes, but it's just possible that such a technology
will be sufficient so that the short pole in the
tent would be materials technology (what the actual
fighter structure can stand in G's). In other words,
the inertial damper might be perfectly capable of
maintaining the pilot in comfort long past the time
the fighter disintegrates from making a 100g turn.

> This all assumes that a computer program can be
> designed to fight as effectively as a human. We'll
> know if aircraft can be designed that way within the
> next 10 to 30 years. This isn't even talking true
> artificial intelligence.
> 

Even if the best fighter pilot is better than the
program, all you REALLY have to do is make the
computer as good or better than the AVERAGE fighter
pilot. That might be easier. Instant reaction times
possible in a computer may help.

Of course I've read SF stories where the pilots were
loaded up with cyberwear so that their responses were
pretty instant too. I've also read stories where the
pilots were "loaded into the hardware" as it were
and became the computer.

If we're permitted Star Trek level tech, the fighters
may be sentient computers, as complex and self-aware
as any fighter pilot, only with vast resources of
data, tactics, experience (not all it's own), and
the lightning speed possible with a machine. Yikes!

Regardless of what really happens though, I like
the romantic notion of the fighter pilot (possibly
with a silk scarf) flying his viper/x-wing/
whatever through space;

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