Fractals can help AI learn to see more clearly--or at least more fairly

Most image-recognition systems are trained using large databases that contain millions of photos of everyday objects, from snakes to shakes to shoes. With repeated exposure, AIs learn to tell one type of object from another. Now researchers in Japan have shown that AIs can start learning to recognize everyday objects by being trained on computer-generated fractals instead. It's a weird idea but it could be a big deal. Generating training data automatically is an exciting trend in machine learning.