CAPTCHAs usually sort traffic correctly based on IP, browser footprint, and mouse movement before the images even load. The reason why it asks you to classify images or read text is because it knows you are a human, so your output is trusted to train models. Granted, AI/ML research has advanced explosively in the past few years, so that may no longer be the case.

[–] aanes_appreciator@hexbear.net 3 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Modern Captcha or other detection systems like Cloudflare Turnstile will run a bunch of tests in the background of your browser, and try and figure out if your browser is likely a bot. Only after those fail do they bother with the image puzzle shite.

Or at least that's how its advertised. I don't know what value there is to highlighting busses or bikes or whatever now, but it does at least serve to slow down traffic if the servers you're gatekeeping are under heavy load, I guess.

[–] stink@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 7 hours ago

In 20 years CAPTCHA's are gonna be "identify all upstanding citizens" with a bunch of faces and if you pick a minority you're on a list

[–] chgxvjh@hexbear.net 4 points 15 hours ago

Sometimes captchas are also just in place to dissuade usage in general or from some people.