Cybersecurity

Computers Can Be Fooled By Optical Illusions, Raising Security Concerns

Computer vision has made great strides over recent years. Machines can now recognise objects nearly as well as humans. However, the similarity does not end there. Researchers found that just like their human counterparts, computers are susceptible to optical illusions. This raises serious security concerns, while at the same time opening new avenues for computer vision research.

Jason Yosinski, a graduate student at Cornell, along with colleagues from the University of Wyoming Evolving Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, have managed to compose images that, to the human eye look like white noise, but in which computers identify objects with a high degree of certainty. They presented their findings at the IEEE Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition conference in Boston last June.