Researchers attempt to fool AI with magic tricks

What can stage magic reveal about cognitive biases? Quite a lot, as it turns out. Researchers at the Institute of Neuroscience in Spain, Teatro Encantado in Madrid, and University Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona sought to apply AI and machine learning to quantify a professional magician's skills in "naturalistic conditions." They say that their trained system -- which was designed to follow coins as a magician made them appear and disappear -- not only served as a tracking tool but as an "artificial spectator" that could infer their location, paving the way for experiments in a subfield they describe as "artificial illusionism." "Magic is not the violation of the natural order of things, but the command of cognitive processes," wrote the researchers.