ghalfacree, 3 months ago

Google, following the industry trend to AI-all-the-things, has released Magika - a machine learning model which can identify file types. It claims it can outperform traditional methods by 20 per cent.

I pitted it against BSD File on something I figured Google hadn't included in its million-file-strong corpus: CU Amiga's Mega CD-ROM coverdisc from November 1995.

Magika identified... one file correctly, a plain-text document. File? File got 'em all, and quicker too.

(An unfair test, I know!)

A screenshot of a terminal session in which BSD File, a tool for identifying file types without machine learning, is run against the root directory of a CU Amiga coverdisc. Every single file is correctly identified.