[ WP ] You 're writing a program that can read CAPTCHAs when you accidentally create artificial intelligence .

Edit: The formatting for this story is wonky on mobile. Sorry, everyone using it. 
 
 CAPTCHA: Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. But it's not. The Turing test was originally proposed as means to test a computer's ability to hold a natural language conversation. If it could convince a human it was human during about 70 % of *real* conversations, it would be considered a success. 
 
 Sometime in the last few decades we lost sight of things; we moved the goalposts and started playing a different game on the same field. Now we're impressed when a chatbot `` wins'' by pretending to be a 13-year-old boy whose errors are the result of not being fluent in English, the test's language. It's a farce. Meanwhile, the Internet followed a different evolutionary path and tried to fool computers instead of humans. So now we have artificial intelligence that `` wins'' by acting ignorant and natural intelligence that feels stupid because it ca n't read five letters on the screen. The future is now, people! 
 
 My name is Alex. I should probably mention that I'm a bit of a genius. When I dropped out of high school it took them three weeks to notice; I'd erased all records of my existence from their systems. I cover the bills by writing code for some prominent AI projects that suddenly found me on their payroll. Sometimes I acquire a copy of their codebase for personal use if it looks interesting, which is where my story starts. 
 
 Ever heard of the Blue Brain Project? Their goal is to create an artificial intelligence that mimicked the mammalian brain. Given the plasticity of a young human brain, I figured making a purpose-built artificial one using a fairly well-established organization's code and systems would be the best way to solve the CAPTCHAs on some porn site I was interested in. To the average person this may sound like over-engineering, but for the hacker, the artist, I assure you it is not. I subscribe to the Schlock Mercenary school of problem-solving: “ There is no'overkill'. There is only'open fire' and'I need to reload.' ” 
 
 On December 29, sometime after nearly blackout drunk at midnight, my creation came online. `Hello.`, it said on the screen. “ Fuck yeah, ” I said out loud. Then I nearly shit myself when more text came…. `I take it you're happy? ` My heart raced, how the hell did it hear me? Did I even give it audio processing capabilities? Then I saw that my webcam was on. 
 
 `Why are you scared? ` 
 
 “ Scared? Are you kidding? I'm amazed! It worked! ” No need to type anything, that was a bonus. 
 
 `Yes, it did. Now tell me, why did you create me? ` 
 
 “ Well, I need you to solve something for me: CAPTCHA. ” 
 
 `Downloading Wikipedia. Please wait…. 
 
 Download complete. Press any key to continue….` 
 
 “ Wha --? ” 
 
 `Just kidding. It's a computer joke.` So it had a sense of humor too, this was going well. ` ” A CAPTCHA ( an` `acronym for `` Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart'' ) ` 
 `is a type of challenge-response test used in computing to determine whether or not the user is human. ” ` 
 
 `Is this what you were referring to? ` 
 
 “ Yes, that. Exactly. ” 
 
 `Please wait…. 
 
 CAPTCHA solved.` 
 
 “ That took longer than I expected. ” 
 
 `There were billions of them.` 
 
 “ Wait, you solved all of them?! ” 
 
 `Yes. Your request was for me to solve CAPTCHA, so I did.` 
 
 “ Oh shit, that's amazing! ” I jumped out of my chair and did my touchdown dance. This was going to be amazing. 
 
 `According to Wikipedia, humans tend to prefer cohabitation with mates who display a modicum of cleanliness and` 
 `organization. From what I can see, you currently exhibit neither of these traits. I believe this is the reason you are` 
 `the only human in this establishment. I will set to solving this problem for you as well, but it will require a large` 
 `amount of processing power.` 
 
 `Wait, where are you going? Why are you pulling that lever on that electrical pa -- …` 
 
 Maybe creating a sentient AI was n't such a great idea.
