Shield AI co-founder and President Brandon Tseng breaks down this episode’s weapon of the week in an interview with host Ryan Robertson. Tseng explains how an AI pilot called Hivemind is combining with a Firejet from Kratos to help advance the U.S. military’s aerial capabilities.

(This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity).

Ryan Robertson: This week we are talking about the Kratos Firejet, which is flown by Shield AI’s Hivemind autopilot. I’m going to bring in Shield AI’s President, Brandon Tseng, to talk about this. Brandon, thank you for joining us.

Brandon Tseng: Hey, thanks for having me.

Ryan Robertson: So you were telling me this is for targeting and red flag. What is that?

Brandon Tseng: Yeah, so our partnership with Kratos is really about productizing and bringing to market AI pilots. So, Shield AI, we are building the world’s best AI pilot to retake the skies. What is an AI pilot? Essentially it is self-driving technology for aviation. And why is that important? It enables aircraft operate without GPS, without communications, without a remote pilot, it enables the concept of swarming or teaming. And then — just like self driving cars can learn to drive different missions, park, do on ramp to off ramp, do freeway driving, suburban driving — you can train aircraft to do different missions as well.

We trained quad copters to clear buildings. We trained an F-16 to dogfight. We are working on suppression of enemy air defense missions, maritime domain awareness missions. And so really you can train these aircraft to learn and operate just any mission that you can define that any human pilot flies today.

Ryan Robertson: So what you’re saying is Hivemind is not limited to one type of craft, you can teach it to fly any craft?

Brandon Tseng: Yes, you can teach it to fly any craft. So, the MQM 178 Firejet — and Kratos has been a terrific partner with us — it actually represents the sixth class of aircraft that we have flown. So Hivemind has flown three quad copters, its flown our V-BAT, its flown the F-16 and the MQM 718 is the sixth aircraft. And later this year, when we fly the Valkyrie, that will be the seventh aircraft.

So Shield AI, essentially what we’re doing is taking an AI pilot and integrating it on lots and lots of different aircraft. So you can imagine a world where there are hundreds of thousands of aircraft. Up to a million aircraft flying — we don’t have enough pilots, what’s flying those? AI pilots. Hivemind will be flying those.

Ryan Robertson: How did you come up with the name Hivemind?

Brandon Tseng: Yeah, great question. Actually, it’s a science fiction reference a lot of people don’t know. I used to play “Starcraft” when I was a kid, and Hive Mind is one of the characters in the game of “Starcraft,” which is a real-time, science fiction-type strategy game. So I got the inspiration there.

Ryan Robertson: Brandon, that was great. Thank you so much for joining us today. Folks, you’re definitely gonna want to keep an eye on a Hivemind, because where this thing is going. I mean, sky’s the limit? Space is the limit? What do you think?

Brandon Tseng: I’ll just say it’s going everywhere. When I started the company in 2015, I asked myself, ‘What’s the military look like in 2035?’ Decided AI and autonomy should be commanding, maneuvering, piloting all of our different assets. And so we think about Hivemind being that key enabler for the U.S. military, and to enable the concept of intelligent affordable mass. 

Access the full Weapons and Warfare episode here.

Access all Weapons and Warfare podcast episodes here.