Vicarious said it had developed artificial intelligence technology, based on the human brain, which could solve text-based Captcha tests 90% of the time. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24710209  A Captcha is a graphic or sound users must type on to a web page to prove they are human.

The company said its artificial intelligence software can also perceive images.
The company said it had used its Recursive Cortical Network software to solve Captcha tests as a step towards thinking machines, not for nefarious purposes.

Vicarious hopes eventually to use the technology for robotics, medical image analysis, and online searching.

“The Vicarious algorithms achieve a level of effectiveness and efficiency much closer to actual human brains,” Vicarious co-founder D Scott Phoenix said in a statement.

The artificial intelligence software can “think and learn like a human” by mimicking processes in the brain.

Facebook co-founder and Vicarious investor Dustin Moskovitz said that Vicarious was “at the forefront of building the first truly intelligent machines”.