Amazon will stop accepting new customers for Mechanical Turk(techcrunch.com)
109 pointsby bookofjoe5 hours ago9 comments
  • jordemort3 minutes ago
    I turked for a bit trying to make some extra cash leading up to my wedding, but it was a very time-inefficient way to make money. I think I managed to wring 10 or 20 bucks out of it tops after plugging at it for a month.
  • CodesInChaos3 hours ago
    > In a snake-eating-its-own-tail irony, a 2023 analysis found that between 33% and 46% of workers on the platform were using large language models to complete their tasks,

    I assume AI use by workers has risen to the point where it renders Mechanical Turk pointless.

    • 651012 minutes ago
      I don't see why I would care how they do the job. Just do the job, I have other things to do.
    • skt5an hour ago
      This likely means those consuming the outputs of Mechanical Turk don't have a good way to measure the value (aka quality) of the outputs.

      If they did - then they shouldn't care whether it's a human or a LLM. And if it's a LLM - then the cost will roughly correlate to the MIN(cost of the LLM, cost of a human) to do the task.

      • AndrewOMartin35 minutes ago
        I think the "state of the art" of measuring the quality of outputs was to send the same task to multiple "agents" and only accept answers if over a certain amount agree. With some human review and reputation scoring sprinkled on top. It was a while since I was in this field though
    • moralestapia3 hours ago
      Yeah, I was doing this kind of Artificial Artificial Artificial Intelligence back in 2012 to make some extra $$$. Glad they finally "patched" that hole ^^.
      • pc863 hours ago
        You were using LLMs in 2012?
        • subarctican hour ago
          Artificial AI = stuff like mechanical turk where they get humans to do stuff computers can't do and make it look like it's "AI"

          Artificial Artificial Intelligence = using computers to do mechanical turk jobs

          • moralestapiaan hour ago
            You wrote the same thing twice, hehe.

            But the point gets across.

            • icepush2 minutes ago
              Artificial Artificial Artificial intelligence is when the chat bot is out of capacity, so a person in India is writing the response that gets returned by the LLM which gets pasted into Mechanical Turk.
        • simlevesque2 hours ago
          They were faking artificial intelligence by using real individuals.
        • pixel_popping2 hours ago
          Fiverr-5.5 was the leading model back then.
        • moralestapia2 hours ago
          Not LLMs. (Useful) LLMs came to the market around 2022.
  • sampton2 minutes ago
    Pour one out for the original A.I. (Actual Indians).
  • nullsmack4 hours ago
    I had no idea this was still around.

    It helped me buy a Battlefield 2 "Special Forces" expansion pack back in the day.

    Well, I could've bought it either way but buying it didn't impact my normal income because I did Mechanical Turk in my free time enough to get it.

  • root-parent2 hours ago
    I can see a high value startup, that will provide Human Intelligence with real Humans, locked in the room, with no network, books, LLMs and monitored 24x7 with cameras.
    • HoldOnAMinutean hour ago
      Please enjoy each task equally
    • mcmcmc43 minutes ago
      24/7 isolation with no stimulation outside of work? Wonder if the hallucination rate would be higher or lower
      • morkalorka minute ago
        Just give them some exercise bikes to pedal to keep them physically occupied
  • obblekk2 hours ago
    Maybe the most unambiguous "ai will automate work" example I've seen yet.

    Absolutely does not imply the workers are automated since they can now use the current models to do more complex tasks at the vast number of new AI training data startups.

    Turk was simply not designed for greater complexity tasks and so much of their lunch has been eaten by startups specifically built to collect AI training data.

  • leohonexus2 hours ago
    Where do I find participants for my user studies then?
  • josefritzishere4 hours ago
    It's a shame. Mechanical Turk works better than any AI.
    • xandrius4 hours ago
      It's still AI, just a different type.
      • CodesInChaos3 hours ago
        The Actually Indian kind?
        • testuser198428 minutes ago
          American Idiot kind
        • mghackerlady3 hours ago
          Hey, maybe they're Indonesian!
          • pwython3 hours ago
            I thought they were Turkish.
          • expedition32an hour ago
            Ever been to Singapore? Their apartments have a room for a Indonesian maid.

            Never underestimate just how cheap human life is!

        • shshsjsjan hour ago
          mild racism, needs to be reported
          • aswegs8an hour ago
            It's a joke
          • Faaakan hour ago
            you can call the police
          • HoldOnAMinutean hour ago
            India is not a race, therefore this is not racist.
    • brokensegue2 hours ago
      personally, i've never had good luck with MT's quality.
  • baggachipz3 hours ago
    They moved all the Mechanical Turk workers over to robot and autotaxi piloting.
    • teddyh2 hours ago
      And monitoring of “cashier-free” grocery stores.