Google’s AI Tech Will Hide Irritating CAPTCHA Systems

Google is using its work on artificial intelligence (AI) to create a system than monitors a person’s interactions on a web page to ascertain that they are not a bot without the need for CAPTCHA checks.

CAPTCHA, or ‘Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart’ to give it its real name, uses tests that usually require users to prove they are not a bot scouring a web page when accessing more secured services by deciphering minor puzzles like letter, image or phrase identification. However, such puzzles can infuriate web users.

In 2014 Google introduced reCAPTCHA, which simply introduced a checkbox for people to select in order to prove their humanity; robots would always click directly in the centre of the box which would be a dead giveaway of their non-human programmed perfections.

AI over CAPTCHA

Now Google is looking at removing the box all together. Using a combination of machine learning and advanced risk analysis, which Google said adapts to “new and emerging threats”, the search giant has evolved reCAPTCHA to make the call on wether a user is human or not on the way they interact with the web page.

This will happen invisibly on the page, with only suspicious behaviour prompting Google to serve up the reCAPTCHA checkbox.

Google has yet to reveal the intimate workings of the new reCAPTCHA, presumably to prevent less savoury software designers from reverse engineering it and finding ways to create bots that can bypass the system.

Doubtless Google has ploughed a lot of complex code and machine learning development into this, but on the surface the hidden reCAPTCHA system simply makes web browsing a more pleasurable experience for human users.

While its not the most mind-blowing use of AI technology, the evolution of reCAPTCHA indicates that machine learning and smart software certainly has a role to play in everyday life, whether that involves making browsing more seamless or stealing jobs from humans.

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