--- title: "AI Is Now Better Than Humans at Solving Those Annoying “Prove You’re a Human” Tests" description: "Researchers have found that bots are better at completing CAPTCHAs than humans in both accuracy and speed." date: "2023-08-11" modified: "2023-08-11" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/ai-better-solving-captchas-prove-human" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" tags: - "bots" - "captcha" - "the digest" --- # AI Is Now Better Than Humans at Solving Those Annoying “Prove You’re a Human” Tests ![Researchers have found that bots are better at completing CAPTCHAs than humans in both accuracy and speed.]() *\Image: Futurism\* ## CAPTCHA Real Smooth Researchers have found that bots are shockingly good at completing CAPTCHAs (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart), which are those small, annoying puzzles designed — ironically — to verify that you're really human. In fact, as the team led by Gene Tsudik at the University of California, Irvine discovered, the bots are actually *way* better and faster at solving these tests than us, a worrying sign that the already-aging tech is on its way out. As detailed in a [yet-to-be-peer-reviewed paper](), the researchers found that despite CAPTCHAs having "evolved in terms of sophistication and diversity" over roughly [two decades](), techniques to "defeat or bypass CAPTCHAs" have also vastly improved. "If left unchecked, bots can perform these nefarious actions at scale," the paper reads. "We do know for sure that \[the tests\] are very much unloved. We didn’t have to do a study to come to that conclusion," Tsudik [told *New Scientist*](). "But people don’t know whether that effort, that colossal global effort that is invested into solving CAPTCHAs every day, every year, every month, whether that effort is actually worthwhile." ## Turing Guessed The researchers found that 120 of the 200 most popular websites used CAPTCHAs to verify users were human. They then asked 1,400 participants of various levels of tech savviness to complete a total of 14,000 of these CAPTCHAs and compared the accuracy to bots designed to defeat the puzzles. The major takeaway: CAPTCHA-beating bots that have been created by researchers over the years soundly beat these human participants, not only in speed, but accuracy as well: human accuracy ranged from 50 to 84 percent, while bots boasted a stunning 99.8 percent accuracy. "There’s no easy way using these little image challenges or whatever to distinguish between a human and a bot anymore," co-author Andrew Searles, also a researcher at UC Irvine, told *New Scientist*. Recent progress in the development of machine learning has given the bots a huge leg up. In fact, OpenAI's GPT-4 was even able to [fool a human]() into solving a CAPTCHA on its behalf earlier this year. "In general, as a concept CAPTCHA has not met the security goal, and currently is more an inconvenience for less determined attackers," Shujun Li at the University of Kent, UK, who was not involved in the study, told *New Scientist*, adding that we need "more dynamic approaches using behavioral analysis." **More on CAPTCHAs:** *[Uh Oh, OpenAI's GPT-4 Just Fooled a Human Into Solving a CAPTCHA]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()