For decades now many of us have lived in surveillance societies where it’s difficult not to be within the view of a camera. When being noticed depended on the attention span of a minimum wage security guard perhaps this mattered less, but in an age of AI, the vigilance has become always-on. To address this problem the German designer [Simon Weckert] has created a fabric designed to confuse an AI scanning an image, and cause it to not recognize the wearer as a person. The result is perhaps best described as “loud”, a pattern of saturated colors that targets the algorithms used in recognition. The tests he shows appear to work, but perhaps the most obvious thing from them is that he sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb to the eye wearing such a… vibrant garment. Also we wonder for how long it will remain effective, as algorithmic improvements seek to mitigate its attack.
This is no doubt only one salvo in what is likely to be an ongoing battle of wits. It’s certainly not the first time we’ve seen things designed to confound an AI.