[Analemma_]

This really shows how popular perceptions of Google have changed for the worse over the years. I remember when RECAPTCHA was first launched, everyone knew right away that it was just helping Google train their vision models, but at the time we all thought it was cool, like "Wow, I'm helping the cause of AI research at the same time as stopping spam". But now it just pisses everyone off.

Hell, for a little while Google had a game (can't remember the name of it) which was labeling images with another person to get points and people loved it.

[machello13]

At least the original reCAPTCHA was used for OCR'ing public domain books. Even if it had the effect of training Google's OCR tech, it was at least making literature searchable and indexable for the public good. Modern reCAPTCHA is nothing more than training for Google Maps and, seemingly, self-driving cars, both of which are commercialized.

[hombre_fatal]

> But now it just pisses everyone off.

Though we're still just talking about a few HNers here who complain about doing "free work for Google", not the broad population.