Computers Beat Humans At Facial Recognition

Computers now outperform humans in recognizing faces.

For scientists and engineers involved with face-recognition technology,the recently released results of the Face Recognition Grand Challenge--more fully, the Face Recognition Vendor Test (FRVT) 2006 and the Iris Challenge Evaluation (ICE) 2006--have been a quiet triumph. Sponsored by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the match up of face-recognition algorithms showed that machine recognition of human individuals has improved tenfold since 2002 and a hundredfold since 1995. Indeed, the best face-recognition algorithms now perform more accurately than most humans can manage.

I expect artificial intelligence to come about as a result of advances made to solve many practical computing problems. Computer face recognition, like computer voice recognition, has many useful applications. Attempts to meet market needs will push development of algorithms to solve an increasing variety of the problems that human minds can solve. Artificial intelligence will become easy to create once we reach a critical mass of accumulated algorithms that replace humans for performing many tasks.