NOTE: THIS ARTICLE WAS NOT WRITTEN USING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

I ask all those who know the author to kindly

refrain from asking themselves the question

whether or not the following was written with

any form of intelligence at all. And for those

that can refrain from such a folly, the following

article is meant for you….

It has become very apparent that a lot of us are

asking the question how far will the IT technology

craze of artificial intelligence impact our hobby.

I don’t want to get into philosophical debates on

the theme of how close these things approach

actual intelligence with self-replicating

capability and self reliance and to what extent

they are ‘just’ sophisticated algorithms of data

neural networks with vast amounts of data

sources to draw from. Rather than that, I want

to reflect upon the outputs of AI and its potential

applications to us. In the current fashion boom,

many systems are called artificial intelligence,

which, although very advanced, are not actually

self-learning or self-improving systems.

The boundary, when it comes to ‘artificial

intelligence’ (or ‘artificial’ intelligence...

or artificial ‘intelligence’ - the attentive

reader will surely recognize the nuances of

these formulations) can probably best be

demonstrated by OCR, i.e. systems with the

ability to recognize writing from a source in

the form of an image. These systems have been

around for some time now, and most of the

more readily accessible ones are not, in reality,

actual AI. The more common, simpler ones lack

a substantial self-learning element. In order for

a system to be able to self improve and learn, it

needs feedback, where it is told ‘... but the letter

you read as Z is actually a slightly skewed 2’,

and the system takes that into account when

making decisions, and adapts when a similar

situation is subsequently encountered. Neural

data networks have been able to do such things

for many years, and many articles can be found

on the subject. And that can already be called

artificial intelligence, although ‘self-learning

system’ seems more adequate to me.

Still, I don't want to give the impression that

I am underestimating artificial intelligence.

Development is very rapid and I believe that

we will see things within its scope the likes of

which we can’t even fathom right now. As with

everything, however, I am somewhat skeptical

when it comes to hyped up headlines and

various impetuous statements. Nevertheless,

I can certainly imagine that AI systems will

gradually find their applications in a natural

way in production technologies that are used

in the design and production of models and

accessories.

Due to AI being in vogue, we often come across

attempts to create published articles with the

help of AI. Know that as far as I am concerned,

118

INFO Eduard

our articles will be written by real authors with

real knowledge, and historical facts or technical

data will come from our own sources, books,

archives, knowledge. This is the case with

most of what is, particularly in our historical

articles, printed in our monthly newsletter. They

are based on the author’s own research, often

the result of many years of work, information

gathered from many experts from all over the

world, and is not information that can simply be

extracted from Internet sources and compiled

using AI.

Of course, I can't rule out that one of our authors

will help themselves by having AI advise them

on better sentence formulation, a more graceful

word flow - which, after all, these systems can

do quite well. However, as far as this particular

article is concerned, if you find the style

acceptable and with a relatively graceful flow

to it, praise should not be showered on AI, but

rather on our proofreaders... :-)

I currently see three areas of AI (or advanced

IT) that can be used in plastic modeling that

I would like to outline with this article and

I will discuss them in the following paragraphs

(although surely some of you may come up with

other possible uses and for your feedback, we

will be grateful).

OCR (Optical Character Recognition)

The first area is the study and further processing

of historical documents. This is where OCR

is very useful, so I won't go into more detail

about it as mentioned above, but I will show an

example instead.

Excerpt from the combat report of Lt. Francis M.

Matney of the 55th FG, on 11/2/1944:

Here is the unaltered OCR rewrite:

I was flying Hellcat White 4 on Lt. Jowell's

wing at an altitude of 32,000 feet when 15 plus

Me109's and FW190's came in on the bombers

below us at 27,000 foot. We immediately dro'ped

our belly tanks and dove on them from r o'clock.

Lt. Jewell nicked out one Me109 and I stayed on

his wing. The E/A started a steep diving turn to

the left and ended in a vortical dive.

A few misinterpreted letters are obvious, but

after minor editing the text is very usable for

further processing. Advanced OCR systems can

deal with written text to a certain extent, but the

already mentioned self-learning element with

feedback from the user must be applied... and

you simply have to ‘get used to’ such a system

taking into account any given handwriting.

Text: Jan Zdiarský

OpenAI/ChatGPT Type Text

Compilers

I don't want to knock these systems or

underestimate them. I am playing around

with ChatGPT myself, and I was really amazed

recently when I asked it for advice on, among

other things, an issue with radio navigation,

while preparing for theoretical PPL exams.

However, it should be noted that although the

sources from which it compiled and formulated

its outputs are very extensive, they do have

their limitations. Sometimes we are given some

pretty absurd answers, which this AI is able to

offer with staggering confidence.

I tentatively touched on one of my fundamental

topics – the air battle over the Ore Mountains

of September 11, 1944, with the question of why

this battle started. I wouldn't be surprised if

the system was not able to provide an answer.

Surprisingly (and misleading for the unaware),

the answer is wrong, but presented with a high

level of confidence:

‘The air battle over the Ore Mountains on

September 11, 1944, was a part of a larger

operation known as the ‘SchweinfurtRegensburg mission.’ The mission was an Allied

bombing campaign against German industrial

targets, specifically the factories producing ball

bearings, which were essential for the German

war effort.’

Of course, the Schweinfurt/Regensburg mission

took place on August 17, 1943…

On other examples, though, the system should

be congratulated, and I found it impossible to

mislead it.

Question: What was role of Adolf Galland on

liberation of Prague?

Answer: Adolf Galland did not have a role in the

liberation of Prague on May 9, 1945.

Galland was a German fighter pilot during World

War II and a high-ranking officer in the German

Luftwaffe. He was involved in many significant

battles and operations throughout the war,

including the Battle of Britain and the defense of

Germany against the Allied bombing campaigns.

However, by the time of the liberation of Prague,

Galland had been relieved of his command and

was under house arrest by the Nazi authorities

for his outspoken criticism of the leadership of

the Luftwaffe. Therefore, he was not involved

in any military operations during the final days

of the war in Europe, including the liberation of

Prague.

The insight to be gained is clear - similar

systems, whether we agree that they are

May 2023