# Instability of computer vision models is a necessary result of the task itself

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.17559 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.17559/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 4 of its 9 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 26 Oct 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [Explaining and Harnessing Adversarial Examples](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6572/) (2014)
- [Adversarial Examples Are Not Bugs, They Are Features](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.02175/) (2019)
- [Black-box Adversarial Attacks with Limited Queries and Information](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.08598/) (2018)
- [Adversarial Attacks and Defenses in Images, Graphs and Text: A Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.08072/) (2019)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Adversarial examples resulting from instability of current computer vision models are an extremely important topic due to their potential to compromise any application. In this paper we demonstrate that instability is inevitable due to a) symmetries (translational invariance) of the data, b) the categorical nature of the classification task, and c) the fundamental discrepancy of classifying images as objects themselves. The issue is further exacerbated by non-exhaustive labelling of the training data. Therefore we conclude that instability is a necessary result of how the problem of computer vision is currently formulated. While the problem cannot be eliminated, through the analysis of the causes, we have arrived at ways how it can be partially alleviated. These include i) increasing the resolution of images, ii) providing contextual information for the image, iii) exhaustive labelling of training data, and iv) preventing attackers from frequent access to the computer vision system.