Proving Our Humanity

On this website recently, a security measure was added to the box where I type in my ID and password to gain access to my page. The security measure was an equation, simple addition. “Prove your humanity,” the measure said, and solve the equation.

I’m not sure what the reasoning was on this. Presumably, a bot would have a bank of calculus-level formulas to draw on, where most humans would not. Frankly, I’m glad that the test is one that requires simple math. Certainly, if solving the equation had anything to do with cosines or tangents, I’d be sunk.

But there it is: to have access to my own website, I must prove that I’m human by doing a math problem. They don’t ask for me to prove my humanity by giving my opinion on the border wall. Aside from solving basic math problems, what would prove our humanity, in the strictly ethical sense?

I’m not saying that all ethical people have to agree to the same solution to any crisis, border or otherwise. But coming up short of that, getting basic addition wrong proves something, because that’s one of the ways we think about being human–we are prone to errors.

Another way is that we are given to thinking that we are right while the rest are wrong. We are given to assumptions that resist the burden of finding evidence. We are given to believing in cliches. We are given to a thousand likes and dislikes. We are lazy and brilliant and stupid and also hard working.

To be human is to be a walking contradiction. We run all coordinates of every continuum, but few accept us where we fall along those lines.

I know this all starts to sound cliched, like a Star Trek monologue. Consider Mr. Spock, who defines the humanity of others in terms of their inability to control their emotions. Even so, he often agrees with the ethical decisions of the human crew he is with.

But if we really want to prove to our software products that we have humanity, let’s get demanding. Let’s prove it by something like a mixed devotion screen. After all, we can’t agree on ethical treatment of those seeking asylum in our country. Some want to send people back where they will be killed. Some want our troops to show up at the border with guns. In a classic Orwellian turn of phrase, our leader calls this a “humanitarian” crisis, all the while sending in the troops and the guns.

This is just a thought. Maybe it’s possible that not all of us can prove our humanity in terms of our ethical reasoning. Some will call this a failure of our educational system, some the result of devaluing the liberal arts. To make up for it, we have reduced the test to simple math, just like some reduce the only place where the evening news is true to the weather report. This means that the majority of us can’t do real math (that would be me) and the majority of us can’t agree on humane solutions (I’m sure I’m also implicated at some point in this).

Here’s a simple solution: to find out what’s (not who’s) human, just do the math.