KFC Woes in UK & AI (BAW7)
KFC, the famous chicken institution, is suffering a lot at the moment. People hoping to feast on fried chicken in the UK have been hit by a nationwide KFC famine. The famine has occurred throughout the UK as KFC UK switched their logistics provider from Bidvest to DHL last week. All did not go smoothly through the transition resulting in delivery delays which meant that hundreds of KFC restaurants throughout the UK were left without any chicken available to sell.
It’s unsure exactly why this has happened, with some reports saying that this has occurred due to software issues with KFC just blaming it on ‘teething problems’.
AI and machine learning are now being attacked, as a group of Princeton University boffins have devised a ‘DARTS’ system (Deceiving Autonomous Cars with Toxic Signs). Basically they have written a paper that outlines some tricks to confuse AI systems in vehicles. KFC could benefit from this work, as apparently they can adjust the KFC sign just enough that the AI in a vehicle believed that the KFC sign was a Stop sign. Although in this scenario, the trick could be seen as harmless, the dangers are ever so real as other signs can also be doctored… image a smudged speed limit sign appearing to AI as a faster speed and suddenly speeding up the car dangerously within a housing estate.
A copy of some of the modified signs are shown below, but you have to look pretty closely to see the tweaks.
The boffins claim a success rate better than 90 percent.
There may be significant improvements to make to AI and machine learning to overcome these but I’m sure that people will keep competing to fool them.
The full story can be found here: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/02/20/do_you_stop_for_kfc_vehicle_ais_might/
Blog-a-Week 2018 Posting (BAW):
In previous years, I have had periods throughout the year where I have been unable to post an entry to myblog. During 2018, my aim is to post a blog entry each week of the year. I’m hoping that the blog entries will all be useful bits of information or items that I’ve been working on recently but if the standard of the entries drops, I apologise now, as this could have been a busy week and I wasn’t able to put in as much time as I would have liked into the post