I've dreamt of a captcha to prove that one is a robot, such as: solve this complex mathematical equation in 15ms.
When you are instrumenting software with anti-forensic security features to mitigate the speed of some reverse engineering, you run into this specific class of problem, where you need to get a machine to make a verifiable attestation to its identity and integrity and prove to a level of acceptable risk that the message isn't just someone inserting a breakpoint.
If you have ever had to design an "offline mode" for a verified transaction without a 3rd party verifier, you will need to run down this rabbit hole. This is to say, your intuition is a sound one!
The baseline test seemed like an unnecessary deviance, and more like an active-duty psych exam measuring the psychological effects of the job.
It's also arguably the point of the novel/movies (I'll leave it at that to avoid spoilers).
[0]: https://nautil.us/blog/the-science-behind-blade-runners-voig... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Androids_Dream_of_Electric_... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner_2049
And narratively I think it works amazingly. The idea of forcing someone to prove that they're sufficiently inhuman ... shudder.