162. Matching “Unmatchable” Fingerprints

The Next Byte Podcast · 20 Feb 2024 · 21m

AI in practice: one real use of AI described

What this episode covers

Hosts Daniel and Forbode discuss research by Columbia University undergraduate Gabe Guo, who used AI to challenge the long-standing forensic assumption that fingerprints from different fingers of the same person are unique. Guo utilized a contrastive learning model on a public NIST database of 60,000 fingerprints to identify similarities in the central 'singularity' patterns (angles and curvatures) rather than traditional edge minutiae, achieving up to 88% accuracy in linking intra-person fingerprints. The team faced initial rejection from a forensics journal due to the paradigm-shifting nature of the findings but eventually published their work after persistent effort.

AI in practice

Where this conversation describes AI being used to build or deliver a product. Part of the AI in practice tracker.

Engineering & simulationcontrastive learning model77% success rate for single pairs; 88% with multiple samples

An undergraduate student trained a contrastive learning model on a public database of 60,000 fingerprints to determine if different fingers from the same person share identifiable similarities, achieving a 77% success rate for single pairs and up to 88% with multiple samples.

“the, uh, artificial intelligence model that they decided to pursue here is the contrastive learning uh, model. … What they ended up realizing, um, as this thing was trained was, I think with a 77% certainty or positive rate, it could tell us that, you know, different fingers from the same person belonged to the same person…”

Speaker 1 · Hear it at 7:45

Mentioned

Companies
Mouser Electronics, Columbia University, University at Buffalo, NIST
Also
NCIS

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