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Artificial Intelligence Outsmarts Captcha Check

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6 November 2017

By Lauren H

With TV shows like Black Mirror and Humans, we’re always curious about the extent to which artificial intelligence could progress, and what exactly it could do in the future.

Well, now, computer scientists have developed artificial intelligence so smart that it can crack the Captcha website security check system. Designed to check if you’re human, Captcha provides a combination of letters and numbers that machines should struggle to complete correctly.

Yet, researchers have now developed an algorithm that imitates how the human mind responds to these visual clues, identifying letters and numbers from their shapes.

According to Google, its reCaptcha test is so complicated that even humans can only solve it 87% of the time.

The team from Vicarious developed Recursive Cortical Network, a software that mimics processes in the human brain while requiring less computing power than a neural network. It’s pretty impressive.

However, it does raise concerns about the potential for a cyber attack on Captcha.

According to Simon Edwards, a cyber-security architect for Trend Micro Europe,

We’re not seeing attacks on Captcha at the moment, but within three or four months, whatever the researchers have developed will become mainstream, so Captcha’s days are numbered.

The very nature of big data analysis and machine learning is that if you give it enough data to play with, it will eventually work out most things.

The technology has been around for a long time – there needs to be a better version of Captcha.

In my mind, the best form of authentication is two-factor. It’s the only real way of getting around these problems.

Is this a sign that artificial intelligence is going too far? What should we expect in the future? Before you know it, robots could be roaming the streets and you wouldn’t even know about it…dun dun duuuuhhhh!

What do you think?

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