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Captcha pictures force you to look at the world the way an AI does

clivethompson.medium.com

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Re: Captcha pictures force you to look at the world the way an AI does

#261

Post by tdeck »

enriquto wrote: post #256
innocenat wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I hate more is US-centric of the CAPTCHA. Not only for reCAPTCHA, hCAPTCHA also failed in this regard. I mentioned before, but once I got present with hCAPTCHA asking me to select 電車 (lit. electric train, but since all trains in big cities in Japan are electric train, 'train' in English also usually got translated as 電車). There's a picture of diesel train in the choice. Do I select it? idk. Lately I have been pr…

...not to speak of "fire hydrants" which I cannot fathom what is the purpose of these damn things. Do people hydrate themselves using fire on the US?

These are large-diameter / high pressure connections to the local water main. Firetrucks carry water, of course, but it's limited. The hydrant allows them to attach a hose and pull in additional water.

It seems that they have them in many countries, but they are often underground rather than the pillar type used in the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_hydrant

Re: Captcha pictures force you to look at the world the way an AI does

#262

Post by dunnevens »

mrkramer wrote: post #137
dunnevens wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't be a DDoS. At least, I don't think it would. It would just be simply people refusing to work on captchas more than a certain amount. Basically, if you make me hunt for bikes and there's more than 3 of them, then I'm not doing it. More akin to a deliberate labor slowdown than a DDoS, or even a strike.

How do you know how many bikes are out there in total? And what is a purpose of a deliberate labor slowdown if you are going to get more captcha work if you do not finish your current one. I mentioned DDOS because every time you fail to satisfy captcha criteria website requests a new batch of captcha for you; in that way you would be constantly requesting a new captcha if you would be deliberately failing your curren…

Good point on the DDOS. Didn't think of it that way.

Re: Captcha pictures force you to look at the world the way an AI does

#263

Post by arpa »

domnomnom wrote: post #255
crazygringo wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's for this very reason I'm so happy to see something like this article on HN, and I'm so happy to see your comment too. I think I know exactly where you're coming from -- I was exactly the same way when I was younger. I was 100% extremely logical, and my emotional awareness was... exceedingly underdeveloped. Long story short, I got into different artistic pursuits where I was forced to develop my emotional awarene…

I feel like your comment was expressed in sort of a dick way, but I also think it strikes at a truth that’s so deep and needed in our society. So thanks for the comment.

Not sure what's dickish about it to be honest.

Re: Captcha pictures force you to look at the world the way an AI does

#264

Post by enriquto »

tdeck wrote: post #261
enriquto wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...not to speak of "fire hydrants" which I cannot fathom what is the purpose of these damn things. Do people hydrate themselves using fire on the US?

These are large-diameter / high pressure connections to the local water main. Firetrucks carry water, of course, but it's limited. The hydrant allows them to attach a hose and pull in additional water. It seems that they have them in many countries, but they are often underground rather than the pillar type used in the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_hydrant

Thanks! I was being facetious because I actually looked what they were after a few captchas. Indeed, there are many of those in my country but they don't look at all like that, typically being attached to the walls of the buildings, or covered underground.

Re: Captcha pictures force you to look at the world the way an AI does

#265

Post by tdeck »

enriquto wrote: post #264
tdeck wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are large-diameter / high pressure connections to the local water main. Firetrucks carry water, of course, but it's limited. The hydrant allows them to attach a hose and pull in additional water. It seems that they have them in many countries, but they are often underground rather than the pillar type used in the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_hydrant

Thanks! I was being facetious because I actually looked what they were after a few captchas. Indeed, there are many of those in my country but they don't look at all like that, typically being attached to the walls of the buildings, or covered underground.

It was an interesting question for me as well, because I never stopped to think of why I didn't see these in certain cities abroad and how they fight fires in those cities.

Re: Captcha pictures force you to look at the world the way an AI does

#266

Post by enriquto »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #172
lotsofpulp wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it corruption? The website’s owners consciously choose to use said bouncer who has agreed to accept compensation in the form of making the website’s visitors solve captcha.

Do you think that's universally true, like website _owners_ (as opposed to developers) realise captchas are a thing? Seems unlikely to me; the dev setup a cdn, the owner mightn't even know what that is.

> the owner mightn't even know what that is.

That's a problem of literacy, but it is still their fault and their responsibility as owners of the site.

Re: Captcha pictures force you to look at the world the way an AI does

#267

Post by iratewizard »

jquery wrote: post #226
iratewizard wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depression isn't the only emotion you feel when you stop being disconnected from the world. You may come out of it with a greater appreciation for nature, art, literature, etc. You may even have more pride in your work as you become capable of developing a design language and incorporating it into what you build.

I am surprised at the downvotes on your comment. It seems so obviously correct that I can only surmise certain things about HNs demographic. Oh well, it’s not like men in tech are famous for our high emotional intelligence.

I don't pay attention to the points on this site. The hackernews I knew a decade ago is dead. What's left is a bunch of middling code monkeys who think this should be treated like extra-pretentious reddit. If I had to describe it in a metaphor, I would say it's now an Asperger's meet up show and tell. It used to be that truly interesting things would get posted here on a daily basis, too.

Re: Captcha pictures force you to look at the world the way an AI does

#268

Post by mwcampbell »

makeitdouble wrote: post #229
mwcampbell wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Being 100% computer illiterate I wonder how much of that was due to the impairment itself, and how much was due to people underestimating her or not being willing to work with her to get her online. > I could not reasonably answer that question I can appreciate that it would have been challenging to come up with an explanation on the spot, while trying to talk her through joining the meeting. Having spent several m…

Not OP obviously, but I’ve seen superficially similar cases. It is hard to put in words, but some people just wouldn’t need to be online/on smartphones if it wasn’t for the pandemic, and they wouldn’t have any specific issue in their day to day life. Perhaps drawing a parallel with social networks could help: when such a huge portion of the population is on facebook properties, it could look crazy to not have a faceb…

> but some people just wouldn’t need to be online/on smartphones if it wasn’t for the pandemic, and they wouldn’t have any specific issue in their day to day life.

But now the pandemic has happened, being online is more important than ever, and there's probably no going back. I find it unacceptable to leave some people behind. I know that pessimism and cynicism about the Internet are fashionable these days. But we're still here, discussing things online. If we're not willing to throw that away ourselves, then maybe we need to give those people more of a chance to decide for themselves if it's worthwhile.

Re: Captcha pictures force you to look at the world the way an AI does

#269

Post by frosted-flakes »

22c wrote: post #235
mediocregopher wrote: post #7

For me a part of the melancholy feeling comes from the indignity of being forced to prove I'm human, and then the frustration at this stupid world we've created which requires me to do so which immediately follows the indignity. A website with captchas is like a retail store with metal detectors; it's not somewhere I feel welcome.

> the indignity What's particularly degrading is when it asks you to do something like "select all the bridges" and you as a human see one that is clearly an overpass, not a bridge. You don't select it because it's not what you'd call a bridge. You're inhuman. You're asked to select the motorcycles.. Here's a motorised scooter that looks a lot like a motorcycle. You thought that wasn't a motorcycle? Back to the train…

How is a highway overpass not a bridge? I would classify it as one.

Re: Captcha pictures force you to look at the world the way an AI does

#270

Post by mwcampbell »

mwcampbell wrote: post #216
random_upvoter wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I'm member of a a religious (yogic) organisation and we have our own little chanting on Saturdays. When Covid broke out this obviously became impossible so we decided to have our meetings on Zoom instead. Now we have one woman in our group with some intellectual disability, a wonderful, sweet woman with the kindest heart in the world. Being 100% computer illiterate, she still decided to buy a tablet so she could f…

> Being 100% computer illiterate I wonder how much of that was due to the impairment itself, and how much was due to people underestimating her or not being willing to work with her to get her online. > I could not reasonably answer that question I can appreciate that it would have been challenging to come up with an explanation on the spot, while trying to talk her through joining the meeting. Having spent several m…

I'd appreciate feedback on possible reasons why my comment got multiple downvotes. Did my attempted explanation of CAPTCHAs come off as condescending? I specifically tried to avoid that. I also wasn't criticizing the parent commenter for not being able to come up with an explanation in the moment. Or was there something else objectionable about what I wrote?

Edit: OK, in hindsight, my explanation was incomplete. I should have added something like: The general idea is that Zoom is asking you to do something that a computer program can't reliably do. Unfortunately, as computers get better at performing simple tasks that used to require human intelligence, it becomes more challenging for a computer to determine that you're a person and not another computer. That's why it has gotten to the point of asking you to click on the tiles with traffic lights.

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