Is it possible for us to see what’s around the corner? Nope, since we can only see what our eyes can see, and since our eyes can’t bend around a corner, it would be pretty much impossible to do so. However, thanks to work done by researchers at MIT. they have developed an AI algorithm that can.
How does this work? Basically, it relies on shadows which it then uses to predict what is going on around the corner without actually seeing it. The algorithm predicts the light transport, which is basically to say how the light travels in a scene, and from that, it will attempt to predict what is going on.
Now, in the video above, the reconstructed video is extremely blurry and pixelated and it’s impossible to tell what exactly is moving around, but the fact that it seems to be able to predict the movements with stunning accuracy is pretty impressive. As to what it could be used for, some potential applications would be self-driving cars, where the tech could allow for self-driving cars to see around corners before it gets there, thus giving the car enough time to react.
The researchers are looking to improve on the overall quality of the video and are also hoping to test out their tech in uncontrolled environments.