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How is that "free work"? The original recaptcha was used to help clear up text from book digitization projects where OCR couldn't understand the data. The app

by dsp1234 10y ago

How is that "free work"? The original recaptcha was used to help clear up text from book digitization projects where OCR couldn't understand the data. The appeal of this was that these works were in the public domain, and thus proper digitization of these works is a societal-wide benefit. Since Google purchased it, they've been using it to: 1.) Clean street view data for a proprietary product (Google maps) 2.) Build training sets for unknown ML purposes These are activities that Google could very much pay a group of people to do. Instead, through recaptcha, they are getting that work from the end user for no payment. A case could be made that it's not free for the owner of the site that deploy recaptcha (because they get value out of the service, and Google gets data/ML services). However, the actual end user who has to fill out the recaptcha does not benefit in any significant way. Since a recaptcha is an inconvenience to the end user, that user pays both with the time to fill it out, and the data gathered by Google. TL;DR Some people do not like that Google benefits from a transaction where Google is not a party, and where otherwise, Google could generate the benefit using their own resources.

danso 10y ago
Recaptcha was not a free service. Or if it was, why did Google end up paying millions for it? And it's not free now, unless the engineers and scientists working on it are working pro bono. According to Wikipedia and the New York Times, reCaptcha was not developed for public domain works. Its pilot project was to digitize the NYT archives, archives which were not released to the public domain nor are fully available without being a subscriber: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/29/science/29recaptcha.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/29/science/29recaptcha.html I'm not a machine learning expert but I'm going to laugh at your suggestion that Google could "pay a group of people to do". In the above referenced NYT article from 2011, recaptcha's creator says several million words were being processed by recaptcha per day. And again, have to disagree that the end user "does not benefit in any significant way". We would not be discussing this if Google hadn't learned from massive user data to iterate their captcha from distorted word mush to what it is today. Captcha was a serious drain of user energy and patience, that's why recaptcha was invented in the first place. And the worst captchas were tolerated because automated usage was a financial threat to websites that end users use.
- eriknstr 10y ago
  I had totally forgotten how bad the word mush was. In perspective of this, I agree that we do get something back from doing unpaid work for Google, and that is a HUGELY improved user experience with the current reCAPTCHA like "click all the pictures of sandwiches" or "click the portions of the picture that has a street sign in it" compared to the earlier reCAPTCHA and other CAPTCHA.
  - wst_ 10y ago
    Which still makes you work for them. Just, instead of letters, you get a bunch of images to recognize.
- dsp1234 10y ago
  Recaptcha was not a free service. It was provided a free service[0] (search free). I'm pretty sure that no one in this conversation is saying that the cost to run the service is free, and arguing such is a strawman. was not developed for public domain works. pilot project was to digitize the NYT archives While the original "recaptcha.net" website is no longer available online (even via archive.org). There are plenty of sources still available that bely this claim. that will help convert printed text into computer-readable letters on behalf of the Internet Archive[0]. The team is involved in digitising old books and manuscripts supplied by a non-profit organisation called the Internet Archive[1]. "There's still about 100 million books to be digitised, which at the current rate will take us about 400 years to complete - Luis von Ahn, Carnegie Mellon"[1]. The sources are from 2007, when recaptcha was first introduced. There are more, but I picked the first two by going back to the beginning of the wikipedia entry for recaptcha and looking at the supplied sources. This is before Google bought it in 2009. While I can't speak for anyone else, this is what I mean when I say "original" recaptcha. laugh at your suggestion that Google could "pay a group of people to do". They got a group of people to do it for free, which implies (barring salaries) that they could also get a group of people to do it for not-free. Thus the argument that people don't want to work for Google for free. Google hadn't learned from massive user data And when Google has met it's ML goals and decides it gets no further benefit from recaptcha? Remember, it's not a free-to-run service. They only continue it as long as they benefit. If recaptcha shuts down, it would have been nicer to have the fruits of that work available through something like the Internet Archive, than something like Google Books. [0] - http://www.cmu.edu/news/archive/2007/May/may24_recaptcha.shtml http://www.cmu.edu/news/archive/2007/May/may24_recaptcha.sht... [1] - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7023627.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7023627.stm
johnfn 10y ago
> However, the actual end user who has to fill out the recaptcha does not benefit in any significant way. This isn't true. The end user benefits in a very obvious way by being able to use a site that hasn't been crippled or spammed by bots. It is very possible that many sites either would not exist or would be of much worse quality without a recaptcha-like service. Everyone profits from recaptcha.

by dsp1234 10y ago

danso 10y ago

Recaptcha was not a free service. Or if it was, why did Google end up paying millions for it? And it's not free now, unless the engineers and scientists working on it are working pro bono. According to Wikipedia and the New York Times, reCaptcha was not developed for public domain works. Its pilot project was to digitize the NYT archives, archives which were not released to the public domain nor are fully available without being a subscriber: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/29/science/29recaptcha.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/29/science/29recaptcha.html I'm not a machine learning expert but I'm going to laugh at your suggestion that Google could "pay a group of people to do". In the above referenced NYT article from 2011, recaptcha's creator says several million words were being processed by recaptcha per day. And again, have to disagree that the end user "does not benefit in any significant way". We would not be discussing this if Google hadn't learned from massive user data to iterate their captcha from distorted word mush to what it is today. Captcha was a serious drain of user energy and patience, that's why recaptcha was invented in the first place. And the worst captchas were tolerated because automated usage was a financial threat to websites that end users use.

eriknstr 10y ago
I had totally forgotten how bad the word mush was. In perspective of this, I agree that we do get something back from doing unpaid work for Google, and that is a HUGELY improved user experience with the current reCAPTCHA like "click all the pictures of sandwiches" or "click the portions of the picture that has a street sign in it" compared to the earlier reCAPTCHA and other CAPTCHA.
- wst_ 10y ago
  Which still makes you work for them. Just, instead of letters, you get a bunch of images to recognize.
dsp1234 10y ago
Recaptcha was not a free service. It was provided a free service[0] (search free). I'm pretty sure that no one in this conversation is saying that the cost to run the service is free, and arguing such is a strawman. was not developed for public domain works. pilot project was to digitize the NYT archives While the original "recaptcha.net" website is no longer available online (even via archive.org). There are plenty of sources still available that bely this claim. that will help convert printed text into computer-readable letters on behalf of the Internet Archive[0]. The team is involved in digitising old books and manuscripts supplied by a non-profit organisation called the Internet Archive[1]. "There's still about 100 million books to be digitised, which at the current rate will take us about 400 years to complete - Luis von Ahn, Carnegie Mellon"[1]. The sources are from 2007, when recaptcha was first introduced. There are more, but I picked the first two by going back to the beginning of the wikipedia entry for recaptcha and looking at the supplied sources. This is before Google bought it in 2009. While I can't speak for anyone else, this is what I mean when I say "original" recaptcha. laugh at your suggestion that Google could "pay a group of people to do". They got a group of people to do it for free, which implies (barring salaries) that they could also get a group of people to do it for not-free. Thus the argument that people don't want to work for Google for free. Google hadn't learned from massive user data And when Google has met it's ML goals and decides it gets no further benefit from recaptcha? Remember, it's not a free-to-run service. They only continue it as long as they benefit. If recaptcha shuts down, it would have been nicer to have the fruits of that work available through something like the Internet Archive, than something like Google Books. [0] - http://www.cmu.edu/news/archive/2007/May/may24_recaptcha.shtml http://www.cmu.edu/news/archive/2007/May/may24_recaptcha.sht... [1] - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7023627.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7023627.stm

johnfn 10y ago

> However, the actual end user who has to fill out the recaptcha does not benefit in any significant way. This isn't true. The end user benefits in a very obvious way by being able to use a site that hasn't been crippled or spammed by bots. It is very possible that many sites either would not exist or would be of much worse quality without a recaptcha-like service. Everyone profits from recaptcha.