What is Amazon Mechanical Turk in 2024 – The Inside Guide
Invented by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in 2005, Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) was one of the earliest crowdsourcing marketplaces. The name indicates how an 18th century chess-automaton actually hid a human chess master inside, much like tasks on the platform needing human intelligence behind the scenes today.
Over 15 years later, MTurk has shaped a parallel online economy where hundreds of thousands find flexible work opportunities to contribute data, research or content for technology in business.
Let‘s explore what makes MTurk tick in 2024.
Behind the Scenes: Why Amazon Started MTurk
Long before terms like AI and machine learning became mainstream, Amazon had an early vision for combining human skills with software at scale.
Bezos registered the MechanicalTurk.com domain in 1999, intrigued by the man-plus-machine history it evoked. After years of observing early crowdsourcing efforts, Amazon quietly launched MTurk in 2005.
"Artificial Artificial Intelligence is precisely what we provide: humans teaching computers how to think more intelligently." – Peter Cohen, founder, MTurk pioneer
The platform was partly inspired by tasks that were still easier for people rather than computers alone:
- Identifying objects in images
- Transcribing audio clips
- Validating machine predictions
- Gathering train data for AI
Fast forward 2023, these human intelligence tasks fuel critical behind-the-scenes work to improve AI across e-commerce, self-driving vehicles, speech recognition and much more.
| Year | Key Milestones |
|---|---|
| 2005 | Amazon Mechanical Turk launched |
| 2010 | 100,000+ registered Workers |
| 2015 | AWS joins as service for business users |
| 2021 | 15 million+ HITs submitted per day |
| 2023 | 500,000+ registered Workers |
How The MTurk Crowdsourcing Model Works
The platform connects two key user groups in a crowdsourcing model:
Requesters – Individuals and businesses (Amazon, universities etc.) that leverage human skills for tasks computers can‘t yet perform accurately at scale.
Workers – A global, online workforce that chooses from thousands of tasks to complete in return for a small fee per assignment. An open crowdsourcing model that provides work opportunities for anyone with internet access and some specialized skills.
Let‘s understand both sides:
The Requester Experience
As a Requester, you can post basic tasks starting at $0.01 per assignment. Most common pricing tends to range from $0.05 to $0.50 per task based on complexity. Amazon charges a 20% service fee on top of payments to Workers.
"We used MTurk for labeling thousands of data records cheaply to train machine learning models. Total cost was less than $500." ~ Robert, co-founder at machine learning startup
Some examples of tasks Requesters have paid the on-demand workforce to complete:
- Transcribe 15 second audio clip – $0.05 per clip
- Identify all faces in 100 images – $0.02 per image
- Conduct 5 online price comparisons – $0.8 per task
- Summarize lengthy legal document – $1.5 per page
Based on demand volume, task pricing is adjusted for faster completion. Some key benefits for Requesters:
- Pay only for work done – No minimum contracts
- Scalability on-demand from a large workforce pool
- Speed in task completion timelines
- Reduced costs compared to traditional outsourcing
To post tasks on Amazon Mechanical Turk, Requesters:
- Sign up on Amazon Web Services console to access MTurk
- Use the dashboard to create and publish HITs (Human Intelligence Tasks)
- Add detailed instructions, input forms, qualifications etc.
- Make payments for completed work with credit card
Amazon handles secure data transfer while also ensuring reliable storage and backups.
| Traditional Outsourcing | Amazon Mechanical Turk Crowdsourcing |
|---|---|
| Higher per hour costs | Lower fees, pay per task pricing |
| Commitments like monthly hours | No minimum commitments, pay on work done |
| Slower hiring and onboarding | 1000s of on-demand Workers accessible |
| Managed like employees | Simplicity of outsourced tasks |
Who are MTurk Workers?
On the worker side, MTurk remains an early pioneer of online gig work even before terms like the gig economy caught on.
It attracts those open to part-time work opportunities without traditional employment overheads. While many start exploring tasks casually, almost 20% have engaged deeply for over 3 years on the platform based on estimates.
Let‘s break down key worker demographics and earnings potential:
With big tech companies like Google, Microsoft, Facebook leveraging MTurk heavily today for training machine learning models, this online parallel economy looks here to stay, playing a key role in AI progress behind the scenes.
Ongoing Challenges: Ethics, Fair Pay and Beyond
Over 15 years, MTurk has come a long way in formalizing paid online crowd work. But some inherent challenges remain around ethics, fair pay standards and social transparency.
Despite Amazon‘s policies now discouraging underpaying tasks, workers still often complete tedious tasks like labeling datasets for as little as $1.5 an hour. Minimum wage laws also don‘t apply easily to this kind of ad-hoc remote work.
"Is low paying crowd work really moving the needle on AI progress while being ethical? Can MTurk play a role in upskilling workers too perhaps?" ~ Rachel Thomas, co-founder at fast.ai
Extra scrutiny from media and academia has led Amazon to launch additions like SageMaker Ground Truth for higher quality data. Specialized tasks here are better-paying, with built-in processes that ensure ethical sourcing.
But not all jobs come under the SageMaker umbrella yet. Thus wages and corporate accountability remain a debate in crowdsourcing today. Workers are also pushing for more collective representation through message boards and groups.
Nonetheless, MTurk continues opening up economic access by remaining open to anyone to sign up for work. Over 50% of workers are from lower income groups or developing countries like Venezuela and India. At its best, it creates opportunities for those otherwise left out of traditional employment.
Balancing these priorities remains an evolution – albeit one that promises more dialogue.
The Road Ahead
MTurk originated the concept of ‘bursty parallel work‘ leveraging crowds long before AI adoption took off. In 2024, this human-in-the-loop approach matters even more with AI progress needing specialized data at scale.
Jeff Bezos envisioned this symbiosis of human and machine intelligence from the early internet days itself. Yet ethical challenges call for more mindfulness in running crowdsourcing economies.
As one of the earliest inventor-entrepreneurs, Bezos too knows breakthroughs often need inventive solutions with impact on people and society. We hope Amazon paves the way on more responsible platform standards as MTurk enters its next era.
