5 ms·

But you can answer the questions, I assume?

dkersten 6y ago
I get them wrong more than I get them right. Half the time I don’t bother anymore and just think “well, another website I won’t be visiting”. I really do believe that a bot would be better at solving them than I am.
Mordisquitos 6y ago
Being an African born & bred in Nigeria, who comments on Hacker News, the assumption may be correct—but they're hardly representative of the average Nigerian.
pbhjpbhj 6y ago
These are hard sometimes for me, from UK: What counts as a truck? Is a fire engine a truck, is a 4x4 (like a Landrover), a HGV (ie lorry), a box van? What counts as a bus? Is a coach a bus, a minibus? What counts as a bicycle? Is a pedal-and-pop (a pedal cycle with an engine)? The image shows part of a headset that might be on a bike, is that enough to call it a bike, might be a lightweight motorbike? Is a hovercraft a boat? Is a helicopter an aeroplane (according to the people setting the question)? Do pedestrian facing lights count as traffic lights? Then every now and again they add in an image that is, I assume, purposefully obscured (uniform noise) as if painted by an impressionist and titled "boring city with smog as viewed by someone with cataracts, there might be half a bicycle wheel in somewhere".
- g00gler 6y ago
  I don’t think anyone knows exactly what they’re looking 100% the time. I have to redo captchas all the time so don’t feel bad!
- furyofantares 6y ago
  Are these examples of captchas that have failed you or just questions that come to mind? I ask myself the same sorts of questions but then haven't actually had captchas fail me for it much.
  - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    Mostly real examples, FWIW. I use Brave with Tor quite often, every other site is behind a captcha.
- gruez 6y ago
  My heuristic (which seems to be pretty accurate) is to accept anything that's vaguely related to the object that they ask for. eg. if they ask for "bicycles" and the picture has a motorcycle I select it.
- daveFNbuck 6y ago
  Those are all equally hard for me as an American (except for the helicopter one, I'd be pretty sure that was put there to trick AIs).
  - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    Sometimes the turbine housing, or a section of a stabiliser aerofoil looks quite aeroplaney. But yes, I assume I've resolved that one correctly -- just getting in to the flow of my rant!
- wongarsu 6y ago
  One question that I apparently answered wrong for years as a German are the traffic lights. In English, traffic light seems to refer only to the assembly of two or three lights used to control the flow of traffic. The equivalent German word most commonly refers to the entire installation, including the pole, button (for pedestrians and visually impaired), speaker (for the visually impaired) etc. So I selected much more than what Google expected me to select, I selected all the cables and poles as well. I'm pretty glad that hCaptcha at least gives me an example of what it's looking for
  - Bayart 6y ago
    Wait, you don't have to select the whole pole ? ...
    - lyx0 6y ago
      This always throws me off, if it says 'Select all cars' for example and there is a car going into the next part for 10% but the main thing of that square is a tree or whatever, do I mark that? But I also always select the whole pole, no idea if it's right
      - hhjinks 6y ago
        Can't wait for self-driving cars to always crash into the outer part of a car because it looks straight past it thanks to our square-based teaching.
- greenshackle2 6y ago
  I was genuinely stumped by this one: https://ibb.co/1bjZyxm https://ibb.co/1bjZyxm Do any of the tiles count? If so, do the tiles that barely have just the edge of a "tire" count? Who knows?
  - smsm42 6y ago
    Ceci n'est pas une bicycle.
  - dafoex 6y ago
    I'd skip this, because it would tell the AI that this "bicycle looking thing" is not a bicycle. If they wanted a cycle lane, they'd ask for that. Then again, if they wanted a zebra crossing they wouldn't ask for a crosswalk, but here we are...
    - anoncake 6y ago
      I wouldn't skip it because I find the idea of Google cars braking to avoid crashing into a pictogram hilarious.
    - greenshackle2 6y ago
      My goal is not to optimize google's AI training, it's to get access to the damn website. I think part of what it does is compare your answer with other people's, if the AI is not sure, so it's more like a Keynesian beauty contest where I'm trying to guess which tiles the average person would pick. (And fail and then have to go through 5 more screens of this.)
- smsm42 6y ago
  I live in US (though not born here) and truck and bike ones give me a bit of a pause too. The fact that bike is both a bicycle and a motorcycle doesn't exactly help either. And btw is scooter a bike?

I get them wrong more than I get them right. Half the time I don’t bother anymore and just think “well, another website I won’t be visiting”. I really do believe that a bot would be better at solving them than I am.

Mordisquitos 6y ago

Being an African born & bred in Nigeria, who comments on Hacker News, the assumption may be correct—but they're hardly representative of the average Nigerian.

pbhjpbhj 6y ago

These are hard sometimes for me, from UK: What counts as a truck? Is a fire engine a truck, is a 4x4 (like a Landrover), a HGV (ie lorry), a box van? What counts as a bus? Is a coach a bus, a minibus? What counts as a bicycle? Is a pedal-and-pop (a pedal cycle with an engine)? The image shows part of a headset that might be on a bike, is that enough to call it a bike, might be a lightweight motorbike? Is a hovercraft a boat? Is a helicopter an aeroplane (according to the people setting the question)? Do pedestrian facing lights count as traffic lights? Then every now and again they add in an image that is, I assume, purposefully obscured (uniform noise) as if painted by an impressionist and titled "boring city with smog as viewed by someone with cataracts, there might be half a bicycle wheel in somewhere".

g00gler 6y ago
I don’t think anyone knows exactly what they’re looking 100% the time. I have to redo captchas all the time so don’t feel bad!
furyofantares 6y ago
Are these examples of captchas that have failed you or just questions that come to mind? I ask myself the same sorts of questions but then haven't actually had captchas fail me for it much.
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  Mostly real examples, FWIW. I use Brave with Tor quite often, every other site is behind a captcha.
gruez 6y ago
My heuristic (which seems to be pretty accurate) is to accept anything that's vaguely related to the object that they ask for. eg. if they ask for "bicycles" and the picture has a motorcycle I select it.
daveFNbuck 6y ago
Those are all equally hard for me as an American (except for the helicopter one, I'd be pretty sure that was put there to trick AIs).
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  Sometimes the turbine housing, or a section of a stabiliser aerofoil looks quite aeroplaney. But yes, I assume I've resolved that one correctly -- just getting in to the flow of my rant!
wongarsu 6y ago
One question that I apparently answered wrong for years as a German are the traffic lights. In English, traffic light seems to refer only to the assembly of two or three lights used to control the flow of traffic. The equivalent German word most commonly refers to the entire installation, including the pole, button (for pedestrians and visually impaired), speaker (for the visually impaired) etc. So I selected much more than what Google expected me to select, I selected all the cables and poles as well. I'm pretty glad that hCaptcha at least gives me an example of what it's looking for
- Bayart 6y ago
  Wait, you don't have to select the whole pole ? ...
  - lyx0 6y ago
    This always throws me off, if it says 'Select all cars' for example and there is a car going into the next part for 10% but the main thing of that square is a tree or whatever, do I mark that? But I also always select the whole pole, no idea if it's right
    - hhjinks 6y ago
      Can't wait for self-driving cars to always crash into the outer part of a car because it looks straight past it thanks to our square-based teaching.
greenshackle2 6y ago
I was genuinely stumped by this one: https://ibb.co/1bjZyxm https://ibb.co/1bjZyxm Do any of the tiles count? If so, do the tiles that barely have just the edge of a "tire" count? Who knows?
- smsm42 6y ago
  Ceci n'est pas une bicycle.
- dafoex 6y ago
  I'd skip this, because it would tell the AI that this "bicycle looking thing" is not a bicycle. If they wanted a cycle lane, they'd ask for that. Then again, if they wanted a zebra crossing they wouldn't ask for a crosswalk, but here we are...
  - anoncake 6y ago
    I wouldn't skip it because I find the idea of Google cars braking to avoid crashing into a pictogram hilarious.
  - greenshackle2 6y ago
    My goal is not to optimize google's AI training, it's to get access to the damn website. I think part of what it does is compare your answer with other people's, if the AI is not sure, so it's more like a Keynesian beauty contest where I'm trying to guess which tiles the average person would pick. (And fail and then have to go through 5 more screens of this.)
smsm42 6y ago
I live in US (though not born here) and truck and bike ones give me a bit of a pause too. The fact that bike is both a bicycle and a motorcycle doesn't exactly help either. And btw is scooter a bike?