4 ms·

The rise of captchas on regular content, no longer just for posting content, could ruin this. Cloudflare and other companies have set things up to go through a

by cma 2y ago

The rise of captchas on regular content, no longer just for posting content, could ruin this. Cloudflare and other companies have set things up to go through a few hand selected scrapers and only they will be able to offer AI browsing and research services.

AznHisoka 2y ago
What about Cloudflare itself? It might constitute an abuse of sorts of their leadership position, but couldn’t they dominate the AI research/agent market if they wanted? (Or maybe that’s what you were implying too)
tptacek 2y ago
I think the opposite problem is going to occur with captchas for whatever it's worth: LLMs are going to obsolete them. It's an arms race where the defender has a huge constraint the attacker doesn't (pissing off real users); in that way, it's kind of like the opposite dynamics that password hashes exploit.
- anon373839 2y ago
  I’m not sure about that. There’s a lot of runway left for obstacles that are easy for humans and hard/impossible for AI, such as direct manipulation puzzles. (AI models have latency that would be impossible to mask.) On the other hand, a11y needs do limit what can be lawfully deployed…
  - pixl97 2y ago
    >AI models have latency So do humans, or can my friend with cerebral palsy not use the internet any longer?
    - anon373839 2y ago
      Totally different type of latency. A person with a motor disability dragging a puzzle piece with their finger will look very different from an AI model being called frame by frame.
      - pixl97 2y ago
        Round 2: Begin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqnXp6Saa8Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqnXp6Saa8Y
        anon373839 2y ago
        That's a great video. To be clear, I'm not defending Captchas - I just don't know if I believe they're dead yet.
  - jgrahamc 2y ago
    There’s a lot of runway left for obstacles that are easy for humans and hard/impossible for AI, such as direct manipulation puzzles. That's irrelevant. Humans totally hate CAPTCHAs and they are an accessibility and cultural nightmare. Just forget about them. Forget about making better ones, forget about what AI can and can't do. We moved on from CAPTCHAs for all those reasons. Everyone else needs to.
    - nerdralph 2y ago
      Agreed. When I open a link and get a Cloudflare CAPTCHA I just close the tab.
      - jgrahamc 2y ago
        We eliminated all CAPTCHA use at Cloudflare in September 2023: https://blog.cloudflare.com/turnstile-ga/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/turnstile-ga/
        nerdralph 2y ago
        OK, what you now call turnstyle. If I get one of those screens I just close the tab rather than wait several seconds for the algorithm to run and give me a green checkbox to proceed.
- cma 2y ago
  Cloudflare is more than captchas, it's centralized monitoring of them too: what do you think happens when your research assistant solves 50 captchas in 5 min from your home IP? It has to slow down to human research speeds.

by cma 2y ago

AznHisoka 2y ago

What about Cloudflare itself? It might constitute an abuse of sorts of their leadership position, but couldn’t they dominate the AI research/agent market if they wanted? (Or maybe that’s what you were implying too)

tptacek 2y ago

I think the opposite problem is going to occur with captchas for whatever it's worth: LLMs are going to obsolete them. It's an arms race where the defender has a huge constraint the attacker doesn't (pissing off real users); in that way, it's kind of like the opposite dynamics that password hashes exploit.

anon373839 2y ago
I’m not sure about that. There’s a lot of runway left for obstacles that are easy for humans and hard/impossible for AI, such as direct manipulation puzzles. (AI models have latency that would be impossible to mask.) On the other hand, a11y needs do limit what can be lawfully deployed…
- pixl97 2y ago
  >AI models have latency So do humans, or can my friend with cerebral palsy not use the internet any longer?
  - anon373839 2y ago
    Totally different type of latency. A person with a motor disability dragging a puzzle piece with their finger will look very different from an AI model being called frame by frame.
    - pixl97 2y ago
      Round 2: Begin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqnXp6Saa8Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqnXp6Saa8Y
      - anon373839 2y ago
        That's a great video. To be clear, I'm not defending Captchas - I just don't know if I believe they're dead yet.
- jgrahamc 2y ago
  There’s a lot of runway left for obstacles that are easy for humans and hard/impossible for AI, such as direct manipulation puzzles. That's irrelevant. Humans totally hate CAPTCHAs and they are an accessibility and cultural nightmare. Just forget about them. Forget about making better ones, forget about what AI can and can't do. We moved on from CAPTCHAs for all those reasons. Everyone else needs to.
  - nerdralph 2y ago
    Agreed. When I open a link and get a Cloudflare CAPTCHA I just close the tab.
    - jgrahamc 2y ago
      We eliminated all CAPTCHA use at Cloudflare in September 2023: https://blog.cloudflare.com/turnstile-ga/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/turnstile-ga/
      - nerdralph 2y ago
        OK, what you now call turnstyle. If I get one of those screens I just close the tab rather than wait several seconds for the algorithm to run and give me a green checkbox to proceed.
cma 2y ago
Cloudflare is more than captchas, it's centralized monitoring of them too: what do you think happens when your research assistant solves 50 captchas in 5 min from your home IP? It has to slow down to human research speeds.