COMPUTERS have taken an important step forward on a journey which could lead to the obliteration of humanity.
A piece of software has successfully cracked a "CAPTCHA" test designed to tell the difference between man and machine.
These tests are security mechanisms designed to prove someone is human by asking them to identify words or pictures.
But researchers from a tech firm called Vicarious have built a computer program based on the human brain's visual system which has solved a CAPTCHA puzzle.
The development is significant because it was previously believed that computers would only be able to crack the tests when they have achieved full artificial intelligence and become as intelligent as humans.
"Our work... is a small step in endowing computers to understand letterforms with the flexibility and fluidity of human perception," the company wrote.
It claimed that solving problems like the CAPTCHA issue "can provide enormous depth and insight towards developing human-like intelligence".
The firm developed software called the Recursive Cortical Network to crack the tests with 90 per cent accuracy.
Normally, computers find CAPTCHA tests impossible to solve.
The puzzles generally use letters or words which are deliberately made impossible for computers to recognise, but easy for humans who are able to identify a letter or number that's been written in a strange way or crossed out.
GETTY - CONTRIBUTOR
Professor Brian Cox recently said that humans would soon upload their brains onto computers to help us achieve immortality.
But if the machines are much smarter than us, why would they bother allowing us to exist?
It's feared artificial intelligence will allow machines to become so clever that they decide to wipe us all out.
This CAPTCHA-beating machine could be an important step on the road to our eventual destruction.
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