Meriem Guerar, a researcher at the University of Genoa, Italy, offered a simpler explanation for the poor quality of the images.

Asked why the image reCaptchas are often blurry, Google said it works hard each day to reduce the number of captchas people need to solve, and says it improves its heuristics when it shows the “I'm not a robot” checkbox so that it doesn't show challenges to humans. Then there are the blurry photos, forcing users to move closer to the screen as they try to discern if there is a chimney in the fuzzy distance. If there is a sliver of a bus in a square, do you have to click it? When selecting traffic lights, do you click the poles? When asked these questions, Google advised selecting the majority of squares that have the bus or traffic lights. Google’s support page did not answer other questions so many ask, especially about the photo grid challenges. Just click the reload button next to the image to get another one.” That help page also notes that Google uses captchas to train its AI, saying that the human effort that you and I put into solving them goes towards improving their products that digitize text, annotate images, and more. One question asks, “This captcha is too hard,” to which Google answers, “Don’t worry. Google has a reCaptcha “help” page, but its answers are underwhelming.

For this story, Google requested that questions be submitted in writing and then answered them in writing, saying direct quotes could not be used.

Google won’t say what share of the captcha market it has, but it appears dominant in the US, with the reCaptcha name seen frequently on various sites.

Earn by solving captcha