Like parents from the 1950s, AI still can't understand comics. Here's why

Image recognition has progressed in leaps and bounds over the years. Not too long ago, a challenging recognition task involved asking an AI "Is there a human in this image?" More recently, however, the bar has been raised -- and a new research project carried out at the University of Maryland and University of Colorado has another recognition task in its sights: whether or not an AI can read comic books. In some ways, this is deeply ironic. For a long time, comics were dismissed as a junk medium for kids and barely-literate adults.