Gauntlet.

This is coolbert:

Fight’s on!! Gaunlet thrown! It begins.

From the Internet website Coffee or Die this article by Nolan Peterson

"ESPER [MARK] SAYS AIR COMBAT SHOWDOWN BETWEEN HUMAN AND AI PILOTS WILL HAPPEN IN 2024"

MACHINE SI, HUMAN NO? WE SHALL FIND OUT?

"US Secretary of Defense [SECDEF] Mark Esper threw down the gauntlet on Wednesday, declaring that within four years human fighter pilots would go mano a mano against artificial intelligence adversaries piloting tactical aircraft."

Battle in the skies. A human piloted warplane in mockbattle with an Artificial Intelligence [AI] piloted warplane, the latter totally [?] autonomous.

"mano a mano - - eyeball-to-eyeball, face-to-face, head-on, head-to-head, one-on-one, toe-to-toe" [a duel]

EYEBALL TO EYEBALL AND THE HUMAN BLINKED?

Matched F-16 versus matched F-16 for the aerial duel? Some sort of control from the ground possible if the robot-piloted warplane goes rogue? 

See previous blog entries as germane:

https://militaryanalysis.blogspot.com/2020/08/ai-glock.html

https://militaryanalysis.blogspot.com/2020/08/banger.html

Reporting for DUTY sir!

coolbert.