Prove that you are not a Robot⛔

Ever wondered why you are forced to solve useless puzzles to prove that you are a human? A robot asking you to prove that you are not a robot. I mean the audacity!

Jokes apart, I always wondered why. And how is the computer even verifying by just a click of a button. I mean, when you think about it, a robot can very easily do the same, right? How is it able to identify that I am not a robot? Well, it has been making me think since I was a child but this time finally I decided to look into it. It is something that caught my attention this week, hence this issue.

First, let’s learn the Textbook definition of CAPTCHA. Well, the full form is Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Human Apart. As the name itself says, it’s a computer test to tell humans apart from a computer. It is also called a reverse Turing test as the whole point of the test is to prove humanity rather than Artificial Intelligence.

How does Captcha tells human from computers apart?

Here, I will let this beautiful lady do the talking😉.

Well, apart from what this beautiful lady has told, there is something else too that goes in the background. When you click on that checkbox, the site sort of sends back a bunch of information to Google like details about your cursor movement, your cookies information and device history. Google then uses that information to determine the probability that you are a human or a robot. Based on the review by google, the website allows you to access the information.

Long story short, every time you click that “I am not a robot“, you are giving Google permission to analyze your online behavior. Now that’s scary, isn’t it? Actually no. Google already knows more than enough about it😂

Does Captcha actually work?

Well, the rumors say that it does. Apparently, the version used by Confident CAPTCHA has a success rate of 96% and performs the test roughly 50 million times a month.

BUT…

It turns out that robots may be (just maybe) better at proving that they aren’t robots but human😂. A July 2023 study by researchers at the University of California found that AI bots were more efficient at solving CAPTCHA than humans.

The bots were 99.8 percent accurate while humans ranged anywhere between 50 percent and 84%. But when you think about it, being drastically less accurate than robots is actually a good sign. It only proves that we are full of errors, inefficient and unreliable. In short, WE ARE NOT ROBOTS.

So, did you like this issue? Did it make you think about something that was always there in front of you but you never gave it a thought? Let me know.