Amazon will stop accepting new customers for Mechanical Turk

(techcrunch.com)

99 points | by bookofjoe 4 hours ago ago

30 comments

  • CodesInChaos 3 hours ago 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.

    • skt5 an hour ago 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.

      • AndrewOMartin 10 minutes ago 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

    • moralestapia 2 hours ago 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 ^^.

      • pc86 2 hours ago ago

        You were using LLMs in 2012?

        • subarctic an hour ago 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

          • moralestapia 44 minutes ago ago

            You wrote the same thing twice, hehe.

            But the point gets across.

        • simlevesque 2 hours ago ago

          They were faking artificial intelligence by using real individuals.

        • pixel_popping 2 hours ago ago

          Fiverr-5.5 was the leading model back then.

        • moralestapia 2 hours ago ago

          Not LLMs. (Useful) LLMs came to the market around 2022.

  • root-parent 2 hours ago 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.

    • HoldOnAMinute 43 minutes ago ago

      Please enjoy each task equally

    • mcmcmc 18 minutes ago ago

      24/7 isolation with no stimulation outside of work? Wonder if the hallucination rate would be higher or lower

  • nullsmack 3 hours ago 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.

  • obblekk an hour ago 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.

  • leohonexus an hour ago ago

    Where do I find participants for my user studies then?

  • josefritzishere 4 hours ago ago

    It's a shame. Mechanical Turk works better than any AI.

    • xandrius 3 hours ago ago

      It's still AI, just a different type.

      • CodesInChaos 3 hours ago ago

        The Actually Indian kind?

        • testuser1984 3 minutes ago ago

          American Idiot kind

        • mghackerlady 3 hours ago ago

          Hey, maybe they're Indonesian!

          • pwython 2 hours ago ago

            I thought they were Turkish.

          • expedition32 20 minutes ago ago

            Ever been to Singapore? Their apartments have a room for a Indonesian maid.

            Never underestimate just how cheap human life is!

        • shshsjsj an hour ago ago

          mild racism, needs to be reported

          • aswegs8 an hour ago ago

            It's a joke

          • Faaak 44 minutes ago ago

            you can call the police

          • HoldOnAMinute 41 minutes ago ago

            India is not a race, therefore this is not racist.

    • brokensegue 2 hours ago ago

      personally, i've never had good luck with MT's quality.

  • baggachipz 3 hours ago ago

    They moved all the Mechanical Turk workers over to robot and autotaxi piloting.

    • teddyh 2 hours ago ago

      And monitoring of “cashier-free” grocery stores.