E.G. BellAs I tool around the web lately, it seems everywhere wants to make sure I’m not a robot. I have to check a box and then select all pictures containing a mountain. Or palm trees. Or red lights. Or motorcycles.
Or identify and type squiggly or blurry words or strings of digits and letters. I have watched for years as there has been a proliferation of robots. They are taking jobs. Now it seems they may be trying to take my surveys, free catalogs, and other free stuff online. Their actions could be much worse with farther-reaching consequences.
What REALLY has gotten me concerned is that I can’t always pass the tests proving my personhood. I don’t know if it is because the tests are getting smarter, the robots are getting smarter, or I am getting dumber. A case might be made for each. How do I misidentify a school bus in a picture or a red light? Is the text bad or is my eyesight incapable? Sometimes the tests give me a do-over. Sometimes I pass on the second attempt, but I’m not sure how much comfort I find in that.
When I started in the mill in Homestead works of U.S.Steel, things were a lot simpler. It was the early 1970s. I had just graduated high school. There were no computers. I don’t know if there were robots then, but if there were, they were not bothering with me. Life was easy. Go to work for two weeks. Get a paycheck. Sign it and deposit it. I had to go to a bank teller because there were not yet ATMs.
After a couple of years, I got married and things started to change. I still went to work for two weeks. I still got a paycheck. I still signed it, but I then handed it to my wife, who would deposit it.
My wife has always been great and I am mediocre-light when it comes to administrative things. I went from living with my grandparents to living with my wife. I have never done my taxes in my life. That task went from my dad to my wife. She learned my signature. She learned to do it better than me. It was not long before I did not even have to sign my paychecks. I just brought them home and she took over from there.
At some point, I believe I got sick on a payday and my wife had to pick up my check at the mill office. I think you can see where this is going. Eventually, the only thing I was doing on my own was going to work. I never figured out how to offload that onto her. There were still no robots or computers as far as my corner of the world, though ATMs started appearing around this time. There was one in Monroeville. I lived in Swissvale. There was some separation between me and the future not electronically bridged.
In the early 1980s, I started working for a bank. I worked for whatever the pay period was and brought home my check. Similar to the early days in the mill. That lasted until we were able to arrange for direct deposit. I believe that was the last time I ever saw a paycheck. It has all worked because I am fed and my sock and skivvy drawer have been constantly replenished. I have noticed some of my favorite shirts and tee shirts disappear without explanation over the years, but other than that, I’ve been clothed and fed. Well fed. Too well fed. Everything has worked. No questions asked.
I have been married for a long time. My wife knows more about me than I do. She can answer any question about me. She does all communication with the outside world for me. At some point, she made a call for me and the person on the other end demanded to speak to ME. I told my wife to tell that person that the caller WAS speaking to me. The caller, of course, knew that was not the case but was unable to prove it with challenging questions. Systems are not designed for this kind of challenge and my wife has used it ever since. For all practical purposes, my wife is e.g.bell.
Computers really started taking off in the 1980s. I dipped my toe in the Commodore world (64/128). Much of the rest of the world got IBM Personal Computers. The Internet was coming into reach. Chugging. Then exploding. I started at 300 baud (bits per second) and topped out, in the Commodore universe, at 2400 baud. Some got as high as 9600 baud. I became computer literate and learned programming eventually entering that field. There were still no robots, at least not in my world.
Viruses became a growing concern as some programmers were working hard to exploit the Internet, and this, greatly simplified, led to what are known as ‘bots’, or robots. These bits of ‘malware’ are written to interact with websites with harmful/criminal intent. They act like intelligent users, entering data, submitting forms, etc. It is not all that difficult to automate these kinds of things. Automatically enter text and click buttons. I never wrote this kind of malicious code or even had any desire to do harmful things online. However, many others have done so; Continue to do so, leading to website development of techniques to reasonably assure that I am not a robot. If you have not run into this, you are probably not online much.
This all brings me back to the robot thing. The point of online ‘bots’ is to simulate the interactions of a real human. They are getting better, but they are still not foolproof. I am pretty sure I am NOT getting better. I am not foolproof either and I have started to wonder if there might come a day when I cannot prove I am actually a human. Or that I am even who I think I am. So far, I still have one thing going in my favor. My wife CAN prove it.
