This Captcha

"Please select all images which evoke melancholy as opposed to existential dread."

"choose the roads that fill you with ennui moreso than the avenues that give you a sense of listless"
That’s like, your opinion man
- Please try again

I love how so many of these images meant to fool bots are literally generated by AI

Because their real purpose is to train the bots. The captcha features are just there to get us to use it.

The most surprising thing is how you and some commenters dont see how obvious and dead simple the answer is

Like, should they show you a block of ice and a fire next time?

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- Am neurodivergent, didn't even occur to me they'd be talking about snow vs indoors. I thought because it is a visual test they meant color temp which for me registered as the middle left, center bottom, and maybe an argument for bottom right.
- Warm could also translate to "cozy" or overall "hue". Neither would necessarily pick the indoor photos. I don't think you need to be neurodivergent to be confused, maybe just a little more artistically minded.
- okay that one is understandable, thank you
- Thanks for reminding me of my neurodivergence, I couldn't figure it out either.
  I was starting to think "ok this one looks lit and cozy, and how am I supposed to tell how well insulated these houses are?"
More surprising is how apparently some of you haven’t encountered captchas that employ nuance, and what seems like the obvious answer sometimes isn’t.
- my man, its a blizzard and indoors, what part of that has any more nuance than being beaten over the head with the answer
- The thing is that a captcha is made to be solvable by almost anyone.
  So whatever you think the answer is, is probably one of the many correct responses.
Something that's obvious to you isn't necessarily obvious to everyone.
It even clearly gives an example of a picture of a living room.
The most surprising thing is how you and some commenters dont see how obvious and dead simple the answer is
Like, should they show you a block of ice and a fire next time?
This is an incredibly narrow view of people, and what 'obvious' is. This sentence is absolutely awful if you're ESL in any way:
Please select all images of one type that appear warmer in comparison to other images
Even I stumbled for a second on that sentence. What the hell does 'appear warmer' mean? Colour, hue, saturation, is there a temperature reading on them? It can snow at zero degrees, but that middle image could be -20 for all we know; it's in shadow and the only non-cool-colour in it is that orange rectangle.
I mean, to me, it's obvious that you add an apostrophe to 'don't' but you didn't. Your sentence also doesn't end with a period. Does that mean I get to call you out for missing such an 'obvious' thing, and insult you for not doing it? You know, how obvious and dead simple writing your sentence correctly would be.

I'd be with you if it weren't so obvious.

Doesn’t look like anything to me.

I assume this just means "pick inside" without saying it directly. The sample photo is of an inside space. No? The two in the middle row, I assume, are the "correct" answer.

Often the correct answer is only half the puzzle - how you answer (mouse movement) also can be to determine things

Great, now they expect you to be thinking about lighting temperature terms. People who don’t do photography or haven’t read light bulb boxes won’t know wtf this means.

They could easily mean ambient temperature.
- The example shows an interior room which would indeed be warmer. There are two which could be what they want you to select.
Don't overthink it. Just select the interior ones.
- Are you sure about that? Because I’m not. I would have to actually get this captcha and succeed or fail.

There's an example at the top along with the instructions.

This ain't exactly the Mississippi.

It's the two that aren't outside in the snow.

Exactly. Not that you would need it, but it even gives an example image showing the inside of a room lol

I worry about commenters in this post that seem to take this as some sort of highly complex problem verging on philosophical rather than a silly little riddle to go through as fast as possible to get to the primary part of website.

It's the "of one type" that gets me - to me that says I should be examining either the outdoor or the indoor pictures, not comparing between those two types of picture. So I should somehow pick the warmest outdoor or warmest indoor pictures.

It clearly says to select images of one type, not examine images of one type.
- I would write it "Select all the images of the type which is warmer than the other type of image"
I think it's just asking you to pick the indoor pictures because they don't have snow in them. The confusing wording is to trick AI trying to get through captchas.

Is it the one that's on fire?

That's exactly what the model is trying to learn.

Whole lot of AIs in this thread.

Go home, robot, you're drunk

Wait until it has us picking between Good images and Bad ones, to train the AI

That is exactly what this is.
"Please select all targets that should be shot before they have a chance to get away."

I always click randomly on the first 2 attempts to mislead the AI. Hopefully you did the same, and when the robots come to kill us the grease will freeze up and they won't be able to move.

You have to touch the screen. The one thing bots can't do.

I got one the other day that had the third column of images completely cut off on mobile. Didn't matter what browser I tried. I had to wait until I could get to a desktop to try and access the site.

Only number 3 conveys the concept of warmth to me. A wintry scene contrasted with orange tinged light visible through house windows is a classic trope to evoke warmth and cosiness. The interiors are undoubtedly a physically higher temperature at the location of the photographer, but that is not being communicated visually by the picture.

What "of one type" means, I have no clue.

I think lack of snow could be communicating the higher temperature.
- Most pictures lack snow. You'd expect the interior of a room to lack snow. Lack of snow alone does not communicate anything unless it's in a context where you'd normally expect there to be snow.
  If I was a visual designer, and I was tasked with providing a picture to represent warmth, I might choose, I don't know; hands in mittens clutching steaming mugs of cocoa, a cat snoozing in front of a roaring fire, or what else? Welcoming light shining from the windows of a house in a snowy landscape! If I submitted a nondescript photo off of a real estate listing, and said "look bro! No snow", I'd be looking for a new job.

Theyre no longer trying to keep bots out. They're trying to keep humans out. This is exactly the type of thing a bot would be best at. They can probably tell you the estimated temperature to 3 decimal places of each picture.

Turing tests aren’t just about knowing things that a human would. Bots giving a perfect answer where humans would struggle is a perfectly acceptable way to filter.
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While it wouldn't be cost effective to write a bot to bypass this, many websites that are employing this hcaptcha are intentionally choosing the harder to solve questions to push VIP subscriptions and similar stuff.