This is the CAPTCHA I encountered this morning while trying to buy a gift online. It took me a while to process what was being asked, then caused doubt in myself as it kept asking 3 more times. Surely, this is too odd and taxing for some elderly or neurologically challenged people.

If this is the level we have to go to now to fool the bots, and prove we’re human, then the next level is bound to be beyond us. What do we do when the bots can’t be fooled any more? I wonder what the CAPTCHA people have planned.

It feels like we’re close to the only way of proving proof of being a genuine and individual human is some sort of verified digital identity (which would help on the socials and wider web also) but that obviously comes with so so many issues of its own! A fascinating time to be alive… or a bot.

This future (and present) challenge would make a great UCD project for students to consider. The entire user experience and all the technical and security issues related to this are so juicy.