No. 73 — CAPTCHAs ⫶ Intelligence of a Single Cell ⫶ Tricks, cheats and shortcuts
demonstrating you're not a robot in 2024
My name is Linda. I write a bi-weekly newsletter about computer science, childhood, and culture.
I've been thinking a lot about how demonstrating you're not a robot is getting harder and harder. One of the activities I would do with kids to illustrate the difference between human and computer abilities was to discuss CAPTCHAs.
CAPTCHAs, short for "Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart," were initially simple text-based tasks. Then, they evolved into image recognition tasks (type: choose all cars), small riddles (type: move the puzzle piece to its correct place), and behavioural assignments (type: click on I'm not a robot).
The children quickly grasped how to make CAPTCHAs trickier. Here, a girl decided to include rain in the dark to make it more complicated to find the ninja.
I love how the similar shapes and colors are intended to throw off the machine in this drawing.
Here, the little girl came up with the idea of creating a story - instead of choosing only similar images, choosing the ones that form a narrative sequence.
The odds are that this activity is coming to an end. Instead of lecturing kids, I will need their ideas and input to recognise whether or not something out there is a bot.
Maybe future CAPTCHAs will require us to approximate the correct human tempo of writing the alphabet backward? Or to ask a video to turn its head, as deepfakes are poor at rendering ears and profiles? Children are usually the best at finding these kinds of tricks, cheats and shortcuts.
One of the literary classics for weeding out bots, robots, replicants, and other artificial beings is the Voigt-Kampff test, made famous by Blade Runner and the universe around it (see also xkcd). The test poses questions about complex emotional states and moral dilemmas.
You've got a little boy. He shows you his butterfly collection plus the killing jar.
You're watching television. Suddenly, you realize a wasp is crawling on your arm.
You're at a restaurant with friends. One of them orders lobster. The chef drops the lobster into the tub of boiling water while you watch.
How do you react?
Maybe future generations of CAPTCHAS will be better at recognizing humans by employing very local, very recent, and very personal narratives. Perhaps we will employ CAPTCHAs that engage our intellect, amazement, empathy, and sometimes even our fear.
The delightful illustrations in this edition come from the children at John Kerr Elementary School in Virginia, US. A big thank you for Jennifer, Pam, Amy and Jenny for creating such wonderful days of learning and sharing.
Linked List
In computer science, a linked list is a linear collection of data elements whose order is not given by their physical placement in memory. But here it is a selection of things I’ve been reading lately.
The Baffling Intelligence of a Single Cell - the story of E. coli chemotaxis. I’m a massive fan of James Somers’ writing and, like many others, have been reading Philip Ball’s much-acclaimed How Life Works. This interactive essay explores biology in the way it ought to have been taught.
Philosophical CAPTCHAs. Ceci n’est pas un pipe!
Highrises. I love a project like this. “Focusing on the character and craftsmanship on display at the top of these landmark buildings in a way that can’t be seen from street level, the Highrises Collection reveals fascinating details and stories of these distinctly American icons.”
Classroom
I’m hoping to surface and share stories from all of you and I’d love to see your creations! Here are a few teachers using Ruby in creative, fun and inspiring ways.
At the Leipzig book fair, Bananenblau, one of my favorite publishers, had a charming booth. It reminded me of the numerous readers discovering Ruby every day all over the world.
