Hackers easily fool artificial intelligences

Last week, at the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML) in Stockholm, a group of researchers described a turtle they had 3D printed. Most people would say it looks just like a turtle, but an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm that can normally recognize turtles saw it differently. Most of the time, it thought the turtle was a rifle. Similarly, it saw a 3D-printed baseball as an espresso. These are examples of "adversarial attacks"--subtly altered images, objects, or sounds that fool AIs without setting off human alarm bells.