Blogging: “Are you Human”?

I am all for advanced technology when it helps to enrich our lives or make some tasks easier. However, when this same technology starts to replace humans, I think it has gone a bit too far. As an Internet Marketing Consultant, I obviously spend a lot to time on the Internet and spend way too much time having to “prove” that I am a “human”. Is it just me or do others find this a bit odd? With the use of Captcha’s on so many blogging sites, bookmarking sites, etc. I find myself wondering why and when being “human” became something we had to offer proof for.

A Captcha is defined as “a type of challenge-response test used in computing to ensure that the response is not generated by a computer”. In other words, unless we can prove otherwise, we are assumed to NOT be human. This is a rather peculiar twist on the “innocent until proven guilty” premise. The phrase “challenge-response test” in the definition of a Captcha is in many cases, extremely accurate. However, when the “test question” is a simple addition problem such as “what is 1 + 1”, I have no problem passing and have a bit of resentment that this type of question is referred to as a “challenge”. Granted, many of us have lost our ability to do simple math because of the calculator, but “1 + 1”? Even the mathematically-challenged adult can handle that one. But then there are those Captcha’s that cannot possibly be interpreted by a “human”. It sometimes takes me upwards of 5 tries before a non-human presents me with a Captcha I can still barely identify.

This brings me to the new concept in Internet Marketing called “auto blogging” (http://www.profitblogger.com/what-is-autoblogging-and-how-does-it-work/). This is a neat concept that makes it possible for bloggers to blog automatically. In other words, there is no need for a human to sort through the vast amount of information on the Internet that bombards us on a daily basis. There is a program that can do that for us. Personally, I don’t subscribe to this kind of system because I like to assure that the content on my blog is valuable and also like to know what I am posting. But I would like to thank those Internet Marketing Professional bloggers who do use automatic blogging and posted my press release announcing the launching of my new Internet Marketing website on their blog site. I can’t help but wonder if a “human” would intentionally post the announcement of a competitor’s website.