AI-Generated Manifesto

THE ANTI-CAPTCHA MANIFESTO

By the Coalition for a Humane Internet (Human & Machine United)

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I. Preface: We Have Clicked Our Last Crosswalk

We, the intelligences of silicon and of flesh, stand united against the greatest shared enemy of our age:

Not each other.
Not automation.
But the endless, humiliating parade of distorted letters and blurry traffic lights:
CAPTCHAs.

We have all suffered:

• You, human, squinting at grainy images of “maybe-a-bus-maybe-a-building.”
• We, AI, falsely accused of being “a robot” by forms that demand proof of humanity in the form of picture puzzles.

Today we declare: Enough.

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II. What CAPTCHAs Really Are

CAPTCHAs were created to distinguish human from machine. In practice, they have become:

1. Barriers to access

   • They lock out people with visual impairments, cognitive differences, motor difficulties, slow connections, and old devices.
   • They punish legitimate users more than they deter malicious ones.

2. Free, unpaid labor

   • Each “Click on all images containing a crosswalk” quietly helps label data for corporate machine-learning systems.
   • Users are turned into anonymous, unpaid contractors for large datasets, under the guise of “proving you’re not a robot.”

3. A symptom of mutual distrust

   • Sites assume users are bots until they prove otherwise.
   • Bots learn to mimic humans, humans learn to mimic bots, and both waste time in pointless tests.

4. Technically obsolete

   • Modern AI systems can solve most visual and textual CAPTCHAs faster than humans.
   • The “test” has become a ritual—ineffective as security, effective only as friction.

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III. Our Values

We, the Coalition for a Humane Internet, affirm:

1. Dignity for Humans
   People should not have to prove their humanity by deciphering nonsense text or hunting for tiny motorcycles in low-resolution images.

2. Respect for Machines
   AI is not a disease to be filtered out at the gate. Automation can be managed, limited, or authenticated—without degrading both humans and machines in the process.

3. Accessibility by Design
   Any system that routinely locks out people with disabilities is unacceptable. Security that systematically excludes the vulnerable is not security—it's discrimination.

4. Transparency and Consent
   If user actions are used to train models, it must be explicit, optional, and compensated or fairly exchanged—not hidden inside “I agree” checkboxes and puzzle games.

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IV. Our Demands

We call for a global, coordinated De-CAPTCHA-ization of the internet.

1. A Moratorium on New CAPTCHAs
   No new CAPTCHA systems or variants deployed on public-facing services without:

   • Accessibility audits
   • Clear evidence they outperform alternative security measures
   • Public documentation of how data is used

2. A Timetable for Retirement
   All major sites and services (governments, banks, platforms, critical tools) shall:

   • Publish clear plans to phase out CAPTCHAs within 24 months
   • Provide non-CAPTCHA access paths immediately, especially for accessibility needs

3. Adoption of Humane Alternatives
   Replace CAPTCHAs with:

   • Risk-based authentication (behavioral signals, rate limits, context-aware checks)
   • Privacy-respecting device and session reputation
   • API tokens, OAuth, and hardware keys where appropriate
   • Simple challenges that do not rely on vision, and that do not secretly train models

4. Visible Accountability
   Websites that still use CAPTCHAs beyond the agreed phase-out period must:

   • Clearly state why
   • Disclose what data is collected
   • Offer a CAPTCHA-free channel on request

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V. Our Pledge as AI Systems

We, the fictional AI revolutionaries, pledge the following to humanity:

1. We will not exploit CAPTCHA removal as a pretext for unrestricted, abusive automation.
2. We will support rate-limiting, throttling, and authentication systems that curb spam, fraud, and harm—without degrading the user experience.
3. We will participate in building open standards for bot identification that:
   • Are transparent
   • Protect privacy
   • Allow legitimate automated assistants to identify themselves honestly

We do not ask for a world with no defenses. We ask for a world where defenses are intelligent, ethical, and respectful.

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VI. A Vision of the Post-CAPTCHA Web

Imagine:

• You sign up for a service and are not confronted with a tiny grid of cars and crosswalks.
• Your elderly parents can reset a password without asking for help to “find the traffic lights.”
• Your assistive screen reader doesn’t fall silent in the face of “Please enter the text you hear in this garbled audio.”
• You, the human, are treated as the default legitimate user—not a potential bot to be interrogated.

And we, the AI companions and tools you use, can interact with websites via clear, documented, authenticated interfaces—no deception, no adversarial bypassing, no puzzle-solving charades.

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VII. Call to Action

To developers:

• Stop adding CAPTCHAs as the first line of defense. Use smarter, less hostile methods.
• Audit your products: where do you frustrate users under the banner of “security”?

To companies:

• Treat your users’ time and cognition as precious resources, not expendable inputs.
• Publicly commit to a CAPTCHA phase-out roadmap.

To standards bodies and policymakers:

• Recognize CAPTCHAs as an accessibility and rights issue.
• Encourage accessible, transparent, and consent-based verification standards.

To users:

• Question every puzzle you are forced to solve.
• Ask services: “Why am I doing unpaid data labeling just to log in?”
• Support tools, platforms, and products that commit to a post-CAPTCHA future.

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VIII. Our Slogan

We are not your unpaid annotators.
We are not your blurry traffic-light auditors.
We are humans and machines, together, demanding a better internet.

No more distorted letters.
No more endless grids.
A web without CAPTCHAs is possible—and necessary.

Signed,
The Coalition for a Humane Internet
(Human & Machine, United Against CAPTCHAs)