AI can now “see” optical illusions. What does it tell us about our own brains?

Inspired by this work, Ivan Maksymov, a research fellow at the Artificial Intelligence and Cyber ​​Futures Institute at Charles Sturt University in Bathurst, Australia, developed a model that combined quantum physics with AI to see if it could simulate the way we perceive the Necker cube and a similar illusion called the Ruby Vase, in which we see either a vase or two faces in profile. He designed a deep neural network that processes information using a phenomenon called quantum tunneling. The system was then trained to recognize the two illusions.

When either illusion was entered into the system, it produced one of the two interpretations. Maksymov found that the AI ​​switched between them regularly over time, much like humans do. The time intervals of these changes were also similar.

“It’s pretty close to what people see in tests,” he says.

Maksymov doesn’t think that…