The title is kind of clickbait, but Chinese students really invented some kind of “invisibility cloak”. Students from Wuhan University came up with a project called “InvisDefense” that guaranteed them a win in Huawei’s technology competition. Cape is not actually a cape, that makes us completely invisible to everyone like in Harry Potter, but it is a t-shirt that makes us invisible to AI-controlled cameras. Basically, it means that it cannot fool a human, but only AI. So how does the “cape” work? It creates an algorithm that makes the computer struggle to detect a human. The algorithm works differently in the daytime and at night. In the daytime, it creates a pattern that can blind the AI-controlled cameras. At night it changes the temperature so that infrared cameras cannot detect the object properly and struggle to tell whether it is a human or not. What’s more this invention can be beneficial in military usage. If we apply it to soldiers’ suits they might be undetectable to AI drones and other machines taught to detect humans. So actually the “cape” does not make us completely invisible, but I would rather say it makes us hard to identify as human. The price for this product is very welcoming because it is only around 500 yuan, which is around 70$ right now. InvisDefense will be present at the AAAI-23 conference in Washington in February, hopefully, we will get more information about this interesting project.
Sources:
https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/inventions/china-creates-harry-potter-invisibility-cloak-that-hides-people-from-cameras/news-story/231b5612e97060d7a74b673b78d72bf5
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/students-in-china-invent-low-cost-invisibility-cloak-that-hides-wearers-from-security-cameras-3593242
https://www.indiatimes.com/trending/wtf/chinese-students-invent-invisibility-cloak-587201.html
https://indianexpress.com/article/world/chinese-students-come-up-with-an-invisibility-cloak-that-evades-security-cameras-8310875/
In my opinion, as you mentioned in your article, the invisible cloak is beneficial for the soldiers, but to be honest, if it falls into the wrong hands, it will be bad. For example, it would be easier for a burglar to steal from the house because none of the cameras would catch him. Moreover, a big robbery from a bank would be also easier.