Zakharra wrote: We can do it better than any machine.
It's unclear what you're talking about. Human pilots do have a real advantage in ability to interpret orders...but by the time it's an issue, we'll probably have speech recognition and natural language systems working well enough to take complex verbal orders without needing a full-blown AI. For just about anything else related to space combat, however, it's clear that we really can't.
Zakharra wrote:Do we have preferences, yes, but that can be trained out to a degree and you are forgetting one very important thing. Right now no one. NO one is really trained in true 3d space fighting. The best pilots we got can do their best in a planetary atmospheric fighters. We we get into space and develop space fighters/ships, there will be people trained and those that have the gift, to truly excel at that form of flight. Just as there are those pilots now that have a gift for flying/combat, so will there be space pilots that have a gift for flying in space.
And none of them will ever approach the capabilities of a machine pilot, with the difference being so great that even for manned craft taking full manual control will likely be a very unusual thing to do.
Zakharra wrote: Also, in a high tech environment, humans can operate when communications are jammed. A computer controlled ship that relies on constant communications is effectively useless when those communications can be jammed.
And one that doesn't, isn't. Yup, a poorly designed system is poorly designed.
Zakharra wrote: Hells. Even radar can be jammed, flares can draw off heat seekers. How would a computer be able to detect what is the real target and what's the fake ones?
Same way a human would, by looking at the various sources of data and trying to pick out conflicts and find the most probable correct solution. Computers can do this faster and more reliably than humans, looking at actual data rather than a simplified representation rendered suitable for human consumption, taking more sources of data into account than any human could pay attention to, and performing more complete analysis than a human's quick estimation.
Humans are also afflicted with a variety of odd perceptual quirks that could be exploited to make things difficult to see or make a false target look more real. Machines may have similar glitches, but they'll depend on the software and hardware installed. This is more of an issue planetside, though, where exploiting it is a simple matter of a particular paint job...it'd be rather difficult to influence the pilot's instrument displays in a way that gives an advantage.
Zakharra wrote: Human emotions can have an unknown effect too. It's not always predictable in how it affects us. Anger, rage, hatred, can enrage someone, make them like a wild animal, but it can also make the person a LOT more focused and intent, and let them exceed their normal performance.
Emotions can easily make people more predictable, making a pilot fixate on a particularly irritating target and make simpler, more direct maneuvers in pursuit. The power of rage won't transcend physics to give humans an advantage, and may even be quite easy for machines to exploit.