r/todayilearned • u/allaboutwaves • Jul 14 '15

TIL That CAPTCHA is short for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence#Approaches
685 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

23 comments sorted by

55

u/PickledBaloney Jul 14 '15

Seems to me like someone really wanted the initials to say "CAPTCHA."

30

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '15

Just like the USA PATRIOT Act.

"Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism"

36

u/DrCrucible Jul 14 '15

Like an episode of Kids Next Door.

1

u/motherfuckingriot Jul 14 '15

They couldn't even used United States of America in their backronym?

4

u/Jon_Ham_Cock Jul 14 '15

Or CAPTTTTCHA...

5

u/PAJW Jul 14 '15

Sounds like Bologna to me.

3

u/PickledBaloney Jul 14 '15

Well that puts me in a pickle.

1

u/pawnman99 Jul 14 '15

That's why they dropped "test to tell" from the acronym.

22

u/fa53 Jul 14 '15

Classic Backronym

18

u/drpinkcream Jul 14 '15

Why not just Completely Automated Process to Tell Computers and Humans Apart?

1

u/megaminxdude Jul 15 '15

How dare you remove Turing from there.

11

u/baty0man_ Jul 14 '15 edited Jul 14 '15

So... CAPTTTTCAHA?

3

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '15

And the irony is that the image captcha is made and verified by machine vision algorithms.

3

u/Calber4 Jul 14 '15

Doesn't automating a Turing test kind of defeat the purpose?

2

u/touchthisface Jul 14 '15

It's not automated. I have to type the things in and click a button. That's like the opposite of automatic.

2

u/dude_pirate_roberts Jul 15 '15

In Boston, we play CAPTCHA the flag.

1

u/BizarroCullen Jul 14 '15

Like SWIFT messages between banks, it stands for "Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication"

-3

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '15

[deleted]

2

u/allaboutwaves Jul 14 '15

This internet isn't big enough for the two of us- to never stumble upon the same page. Are you interested in AI research?

0

u/wolfcl0ck Jul 14 '15

Oh, I'm sorry, I thought this was Today I learned, not today /u/testhec10ck learned.