Enrollment-stage Backdoor Attacks on Speaker Recognition Systems via Adversarial Ultrasound

Automatic Speaker Recognition Systems (SRSs) have been widely used in voice applications for personal identification and access control. A typical SRS consists of three stages, i.e., training, enrollment, and recognition. Previous work has revealed that SRSs can be bypassed by backdoor attacks at the training stage or by adversarial example attacks at the recognition stage. In this paper, we propose TUNER, a new type of backdoor attack against the enrollment stage of SRS via adversarial ultrasound modulation, which is inaudible, synchronization-free, content-independent, and black-box. Our key idea is to first inject the backdoor into the SRS with modulated ultrasound when a legitimate user initiates the enrollment, and afterward, the polluted SRS will grant access to both the legitimate user and the adversary with high confidence. Our attack faces a major challenge of unpredictable user articulation at the enrollment stage. To overcome this challenge, we generate the ultrasonic backdoor by augmenting the optimization process with random speech content, vocalizing time, and volume of the user. Furthermore, to achieve real-world robustness, we improve the ultrasonic signal over traditional methods using sparse frequency points, pre-compensation, and single-sideband (SSB) modulation. We extensively evaluate TUNER on two common datasets and seven representative SRS models. Results show that our attack can successfully bypass speaker recognition systems while remaining robust to various speakers, speech content, e

Pathway to Future Symbiotic Creativity

This report presents a comprehensive view of our vision on the development path of the human-machine symbiotic art creation. We propose a classification of the creative system with a hierarchy of 5 classes, showing the pathway of creativity evolving from a mimic-human artist (Turing Artists) to a Machine artist in its own right. We begin with an overview of the limitations of the Turing Artists then focus on the top two-level systems, Machine Artists, emphasizing machine-human communication in art creation. In art creation, it is necessary for machines to understand humans' mental states, including desires, appreciation, and emotions, humans also need to understand machines' creative capabilities and limitations. The rapid development of immersive environment and further evolution into the new concept of metaverse enable symbiotic art creation through unprecedented flexibility of bi-directional communication between artists and art manifestation environments. By examining the latest sensor and XR technologies, we illustrate the novel way for art data collection to constitute the base of a new form of human-machine bidirectional communication and understanding in art creation. Based on such communication and understanding mechanisms, we propose a novel framework for building future Machine artists, which comes with the philosophy that a human-compatible AI system should be based on the "human-in-the-loop" principle rather than the traditional "end-to-end" dogma. By proposing a new form of inverse reinforcement learning model, we outline the platform design of machine artists, demonstrate its functions and showcase some examples of technologies we have developed. We also provide a systematic exposition of the ecosystem for AI-based symbiotic art form and community with an economic model built on NFT technology. Ethical issues for the development of machine artists are also discussed