Computers have learned to make us jump through hoops

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John Naughton, writing in the Observer (18th November 2018) explains that the acronym CAPTCHA means 'Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart'.  In the Turing Test, a human interrogates two interlocutors - one human, one machine - and based on the interlocutors' responses, the human interrogator has to determine whether she is conversing with a machine or a human.  In other words, to what extent can a machine understand and utter human language patterns?

Naughton argues, however, that the Turing Test has been turned on its head, and it is now machines asking we humans to prove that we are not machines.
 
He further explains that image-based CAPTCHA, like the one shown below, are being used to train machine-learning algorithms for driver-less cars. So we humans are training the machines, and as such we are being used as unpaid labour.


Read the article online here

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