Captchas, the tests designed to differentiate humans from bots, are becoming more challenging as AI bots become more sophisticated. Researchers at the University of California Irvine found that bots could consistently answer Captchas’ distorted text with almost 100% accuracy. In response, Captchas have changed and evolved significantly over the years.
One day… I might not be smart enough to pass this “I am not a robot” test. pic.twitter.com/hyR9cePQaz
Despite the puzzles being created to stop the bots, the fact bots can solve more Captchas and their ever-increasing level of difficulty could mean the difference between getting tickets to a show or standing outside the concert hall, looking for a scalper.
“Things are going to get even stranger, to be honest, because now you have to do something nonsensical,” Kevin Gosschalk, the founder and CEO of Arkose Labs, a web security firm that designs captchas, told The Wall Street Journal. “Otherwise, large multimodal models will be able to understand,” he added.
And things have been getting weirder. One person took to X to ask for help as they’re becoming a bit more complicated: ‘WTF!? @RoyalMailHelp your Captchas are getting so complicated not even humans can figure them out!
Another person took to X to complain about the qualities of the Captchas, saying: ‘ It hurts my brain to look at something that looks realistic but incorrect.’
I hate AI art so much. We can’t escape it. This was literally the captcha test I was given today for Epic Games Launcher. It hurts my brain to look at something that looks realistic but incorrect. And participating with this test only helps the AI learn. pic.twitter.com/Mr2jnyxgz5
A third person wrote: ‘One day… I might not be smart enough to pass this “I am not a robot” test.’
