From das Wiki: "Tempest will be able to fly unmanned, and use swarming technology to control drones. It will incorporate artificial intelligence deep learning and possess directed-energy weapons.[7][8]"

Really? We can't even get self driving cars right and BAE thinks we can have a fighter with lasers that controls a swarm of drones? Going to be an epic letdown when it first rolls off the line.

Unmanned does not mean self-flying. And even if it did, self driving is a much harder problem than self flying. You have rent a swarm of drones today if you wanted to.

I'm pretty sure they mean like Predator drones not your COTS hoverbots. Doing all that in a tactical/adversarial situation means the likely of catastrophic failure is high.

What do you mean? Are you saying we lack the technology to fly drones in formations?

Do you think formation is all that's required in battle? That sounds like a very sunny-day scenario.

> We can't even get self driving cars right

Air vehicles are substantially easier to make autonomous than road-borne vehicles that must intermingle with massive numbers of hazards, unpredictable circumstances, laws to abide by, life to preserve.

Airspace is, by and large, empty. For where it isn't: it's strictly controlled by other means.

First demo: two drones will fly into the laser beam, roast themselves, and crash land on something embarrassing.