It Is Alarmingly Easy to Trick Image Recognition Systems

Adapted from You Look Like a Thing and I Love You: How Artificial Intelligence Works and Why It's Making the World a Weirder Place, by Janelle Shane. Suppose you're running security at a cockroach farm. You've got advanced image recognition technology on all the cameras, ready to sound the alarm at the slightest sign of trouble. The day goes uneventfully until, reviewing the logs at the end of your shift, you notice that although the system has recorded zero instances of cockroaches escaping into the staff-only areas, it has recorded seven instances of giraffes. Thinking this a bit odd, perhaps, but not yet alarming, you decide to review the camera footage.