Name: Why can't robots check the box that says 'I'm not a robot'? | WTFAQ | ABC TV + iview
Uploaded: 2023-11-25T21:01:20.000Z
Duration: 3 min 18 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Why can't robots check the box that says "I'm not a robot."

I mean, robots can do heaps of complex things these days.

So what is stopping them from ticking a simple check box?

Well, the box is a newer version of a system that used to be called CAPTCHA.

CAPTCHA: completely automated public turing test to tell computers and humans apart.

You might remember they used to look like this.

But as robots got smarter CAPTCHAs got harder and they became completely inaccessible to the vision impaired.

By 2014, Google had designed A I software that could pass 99.8% of CAPTCHA tests while humans were only passing 33% of them.

Meanwhile, spammers without supercomputers could still get around CAPTCHAs by paying workers in digital sweatshops to solve them at a rate of 30 US cents per 1000 CAPTCHA sold.

Now these services are still online today.

So now I just click the box that says I'm human and that's it?

But the click isn't the test, the test comes before the click.

Like the way your mouse moves towards that box.

A cursor controlled by a bot moves in a suspiciously straight line at a consistent speed.

Whereas your mouse movements are, well, uh they're only human.

If the side's still unsure, you'll have to click on the squares with fire hydrants or crosswalks or traffic lights.

Google hasn't told us how reCAPTCHA works exactly.

But experts think this traffic light section might also be a mouse movement test, which is why you passed even though you missed two millimeters of traffic light room in the second square.

So what's stopping spammers from paying sweatshops to beat these new CAPTCHAs?

Their workers get paid a whole $1 to complete 1000 CAPTCHAs.

But there is just one, tiny other little thing.

Modern reCAPTCHAs also examine your browsing history. - What?

Your previous internet activity is the clearest giveaway of who is human and what's a bot.

Bots for instance, don't generally Google themselves while perving on pictures of young King Charles and looking into forehead reduction surgery.

I did not give them permission to do that.

You gave Google permission to. - I did not.

It takes you straight to Google's privacy statement which has this video.

We also collect info as you use our services like the searches you make, ads you interact with and visits to websites that use our services.

Google assumes permission to track you all the time.

In fact, the latest versions of reCAPTCHA don't even need you to tick a box.

And well done, you pass by exhibiting incompetence at every turn.

Don't worry, human error looks really good on you, girl.

Anyway, thank you for the intel. Plato humans.