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I went to a speech by savage earlier this fall. The point that I took away from it is that what captchas do is filter out the bad guys who haven't figured out

I went to a speech by savage earlier this fall. The point that I took away from it is that what captchas do is filter out the bad guys who haven't figured out a business model. On the klingon point: They theorized that the particular organization was a bunch of PHDs rather than farmed labor - and that it had learned from previous 'example answers' they had submitted. That particular organization, it was noted, was also an order of magnitude more expensive than the others.

Tycho 16y ago
I don't understand what difference it makes being in Klingon? usually Captchas are just jibberish anyway. Recognizing individual letters remains the challenge.
- willscott 16y ago
  They were asking for english translations of words in various languages - hoping to determine the demographics of the workers solving the captchas.
  - Tycho 16y ago
    are you sure? I thought they were simply postulating that native speakers would more accurately 'capture' the characters of a word/phrase if they recognized it from their own language. If you know what a word is supposed to be, then it's easier to read messy writing. I realize I could find out by just reading the PDF paper, but I think it's worth answering here for the benefit of HN readers
    - trotsky 16y ago
      Interesting. I just read the PDF to see - they were sending captchas where the goal was to translate a series of written numbers in the native language into roman numerals. So (une)-(deux)-(trois) --> 1 2 3 along with instructions for solving the captcha in the related language. As best I can tell, the klingon used wasn't even in a latin font. So the correct answers were essentially translating arbitrary symbols into their associated numbers. Certainly throws off what I was assuming from the blog read. They do note that the service, ImageToText, was the most expensive by far.
- rmc 16y ago
  They used the Klingon alphabet, which is nothing like the latin alphabet
gwern 16y ago
But... why is an organization of PhDs solving CAPTCHAs? Even if they are the most expensive service, it still seems to offer terrible hourly returns. That only raises the mystery.
- aristus 16y ago
  An organization of PhDs writing software that solves captchas.
- roel_v 16y ago
  "it still seems to offer terrible hourly returns." Not if they train software to recognize letters. Once they succeed in that, they essentially have a money printing machine for a while.

Tycho 16y ago

I don't understand what difference it makes being in Klingon? usually Captchas are just jibberish anyway. Recognizing individual letters remains the challenge.

willscott 16y ago
They were asking for english translations of words in various languages - hoping to determine the demographics of the workers solving the captchas.
- Tycho 16y ago
  are you sure? I thought they were simply postulating that native speakers would more accurately 'capture' the characters of a word/phrase if they recognized it from their own language. If you know what a word is supposed to be, then it's easier to read messy writing. I realize I could find out by just reading the PDF paper, but I think it's worth answering here for the benefit of HN readers
  - trotsky 16y ago
    Interesting. I just read the PDF to see - they were sending captchas where the goal was to translate a series of written numbers in the native language into roman numerals. So (une)-(deux)-(trois) --> 1 2 3 along with instructions for solving the captcha in the related language. As best I can tell, the klingon used wasn't even in a latin font. So the correct answers were essentially translating arbitrary symbols into their associated numbers. Certainly throws off what I was assuming from the blog read. They do note that the service, ImageToText, was the most expensive by far.
rmc 16y ago
They used the Klingon alphabet, which is nothing like the latin alphabet

gwern 16y ago

But... why is an organization of PhDs solving CAPTCHAs? Even if they are the most expensive service, it still seems to offer terrible hourly returns. That only raises the mystery.

aristus 16y ago
An organization of PhDs writing software that solves captchas.
roel_v 16y ago
"it still seems to offer terrible hourly returns." Not if they train software to recognize letters. Once they succeed in that, they essentially have a money printing machine for a while.