How Do Humans Become “the Others” of Computers: Ableism Pitfalls in CAPTCHA Human-Computer Interactions

XIE Zhuoxiao, CAI Cong

Chinese Journal of Journalism & Communication ›› 2024, Vol. 46 ›› Issue (8) : 6-26.

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Chinese Journal of Journalism & Communication ›› 2024, Vol. 46 ›› Issue (8) : 6-26.
Specific Topic / Human-Machine Communication Research

How Do Humans Become “the Others” of Computers: Ableism Pitfalls in CAPTCHA Human-Computer Interactions

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Abstract

CAPTCHA seems to be a necessary procedure for users’ registration, login, and conducting certain operations in current Internet environment. While critics have pointed out the barriers to identification and input that CAPTCHA design poses to special populations, extant studies rarely pay attention to the technological ontology of CAPTCHA and the relevant authentication mechanisms. CAPTCHA technology demonstrates a type of relational inversion of human-computer interaction: From being the technology of “the other”, the computer has transformed itself into an examiner who asks questions of the human being, and has even begun to define and interrogate the nature of the human being, while the human being has metamorphosed from a “subject” into the “other” of the technology. This article draws on the philosophy of technology and the phenomenology of technology to discuss how the Reverse Turing Test intervenes in and influences human answers and practices to the question of “what is a human being”. The article analyses the bodily and ableist presuppositions implicit in “I test, therefore I am” human-computer interactions, and uses real-life examples to reflect on the negative dialectics of ableism, which massively create human beings as technological “others”. It further rethinks the bodily view of human-computer interaction by proposing “defects” and “connections” to demonstrate the possibility of dis-ableism in CAPTCHA.

Key words

CAPTCHA / Turing test / human-computer interaction / technology / body / disability

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XIE Zhuoxiao , CAI Cong. How Do Humans Become “the Others” of Computers: Ableism Pitfalls in CAPTCHA Human-Computer Interactions[J]. Chinese Journal of Journalism & Communication. 2024, 46(8): 6-26

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Footnotes

1. 在此篇回忆中,腾讯员工表示白名单开始的时间是2009年,经与其他网络公开报道和视障者的采访交叉验证,白名单推出的时间应该为2007年。

2. 据杨永全回忆,争渡识图停止服务的时候,志愿者大约看了四百万张验证码图片,但具体数据他们并未保存。争渡识图的志愿者在高峰期时超过2500人,主要是因为中央电视台《朝闻天下》栏目报道了这一公益创新,吸引了很多志愿者的加入。

Funding

National Social Science Fund “Barrierfree Communication for the Visually Impaired from the Perspective of Mobilities Studies”(22CXW010)
“2024 University Research and Development Fund of the University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences: Synergistic Evolution and Environmental Negotiation of Digital Livelihoods for Vulnerable Groups”(2024-KY-142)
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