Likely Normal

Happy Halloween, everyone.  There’s something deeply unsettling about the way humans transform when faced with a CAPTCHA. One second, we’re functioning members of society—the next, we’re hunched over our screens, eyes glazed over, robotically clicking traffic lights and crosswalks like undead drones in a digital obedience test. “Select all squares with bicycles.” Oh sure, no problem, just let me tap these tiny tiles like a mindless lab rat hoping for a pellet of internet access.

CAPTCHAs are basically the Turing Test in reverse—instead of proving we’re human, we’re forced to perform mundane tasks to prove we aren’t robots, all while acting suspiciously robotic. “Click the buses.” Click. “Now the storefronts.” Click. “Now the slightly blurry motorcycles that may or may not just be a smudge on your screen.” Click… wait, was that a bike or a shopping cart? Does the robot overlord accept apologies?

The worst part? The slow, creeping doubt that maybe we are the bots. After the fifth grid of fire hydrants, our souls leave our bodies, and we become one with the machine—shuffling through CAPTCHA purgatory, forever doomed to second-guess whether a pixelated sliver of sidewalk counts as “part of the traffic light.” Meanwhile, actual AI is out there writing poetry and composing symphonies, while we’re stuck here playing I Spy with a system that thinks “select all images with a car” is a fair request when half the squares show a single tire or a shadow that might be vehicular.

And let’s not forget the audio CAPTCHAs, where you’re forced to decipher what sounds like a demonic possession in a wind tunnel. “Please type the numbers you hear.” Ma’am, that was either “3-8-5” or the distant screams of a fax machine. Either way, I’m now questioning my entire existence.

In the end, CAPTCHAs don’t prove we’re human—they just reveal how willingly we’ll comply with absurd demands for the sweet, sweet reward of accessing a website. So the next time you’re clicking bicycles like a zombie craving brains, remember: You’re not alone. We’re all just flesh-and-blood robots, trained to please our algorithmic overlords… one blurry street sign at a time.