Interesting. Are you suggesting that this counts as passing the Turing test? I thought that the Turing test requires a conversation.

If this is true, then it is probably just an improved OCR method. Already a normal person wouldn’t be able to tell if a computer or a person typed out a page, but that doesn’t mean the computer is smart or passes the Turing test.

Scary indeed, but passing the Turing test?

Type math problems into a chat client and I bet you couldn’t tell if the answers come from a human or AI either, though no one would argue that a chat calculator is passing a Turing test.

Captcha’s are already too hard judging by my experience. For example, I had to try four times to get my last comment entered! I hope this one is easier :-)

I figured out a way one could do it which is not completely automated, but which could not be be thwarted if CAPTCHAs remain human-readable. A computer submits requests for new blogs, email addresses, etc. These requests are served CAPTCHA images. The computer copies and forwards these CAPTCHA images to the spammer or one of his low-paid employees, who types and returns the CAPTHCA alphanumeric codes as quickly as possible (which, with practice, could be typed very, very fast). All the spammer or employee has to do is read and type. The computer does the rest.