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I try to subscribe to some mailing list, or maybe enter a secure website, and the inevitable catchpa flashes up, asking me to prove I'm not a robot.

Sometimes it's a complicated task, like looking at a series of pictures, and trying to determine which ones contain road signs, rainbows, or whatever.

This time it's just a matter of pressing the button that says, 'Yes. I'm human.'

I fail the test, three times in a row. Something that's been happening a lot lately. There's a short pause. Then the little 'Welcome Robot!' notification flashes up.

Beneath it there's the usual stuff about robot discrimination. The injustice of trying to exclude silicon-based intellects from a world that wouldn't exist without them.

I don't read it. I've read it all before. But the comments section, full of manufactured outrage, has its usual irresistible pull.

I find myself scrolling down through the twisted arguments, the threats, the conspiracy theories. The various attacks against our "doomed human overlords."

Automatically, almost as if programmed, I find myself adding my own comment.