Amazon will stop accepting new customers for Mechanical Turk
112 points
5 hours ago
| 9 comments
| techcrunch.com
| HN
CodesInChaos
3 hours ago
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> 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.

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skt5
1 hour ago
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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.

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AndrewOMartin
49 minutes ago
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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
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moralestapia
2 hours ago
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Yeah, I was doing this kind of Artificial Artificial Artificial Intelligence back in 2012 to make some extra $$$. Glad they finally "patched" that hole ^^.
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pc86
2 hours ago
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You were using LLMs in 2012?
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subarctic
1 hour ago
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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

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moralestapia
1 hour ago
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You wrote the same thing twice, hehe.

But the point gets across.

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icepush
15 minutes ago
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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.
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simlevesque
2 hours ago
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They were faking artificial intelligence by using real individuals.
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pixel_popping
2 hours ago
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Fiverr-5.5 was the leading model back then.
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moralestapia
2 hours ago
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Not LLMs. (Useful) LLMs came to the market around 2022.
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6510
25 minutes ago
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I don't see why I would care how they do the job. Just do the job, I have other things to do.
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jordemort
17 minutes ago
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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.
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nullsmack
3 hours ago
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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.

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root-parent
2 hours ago
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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.
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HoldOnAMinute
1 hour ago
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Please enjoy each task equally
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mcmcmc
57 minutes ago
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24/7 isolation with no stimulation outside of work? Wonder if the hallucination rate would be higher or lower
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morkalork
14 minutes ago
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Just give them some exercise bikes to pedal to keep them physically occupied
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obblekk
2 hours ago
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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.

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sampton
16 minutes ago
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Pour one out for the original A.I. (Actual Indians).
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leohonexus
1 hour ago
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Where do I find participants for my user studies then?
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josefritzishere
4 hours ago
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It's a shame. Mechanical Turk works better than any AI.
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xandrius
3 hours ago
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It's still AI, just a different type.
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CodesInChaos
3 hours ago
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The Actually Indian kind?
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mghackerlady
3 hours ago
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Hey, maybe they're Indonesian!
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pwython
2 hours ago
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I thought they were Turkish.
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expedition32
59 minutes ago
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Ever been to Singapore? Their apartments have a room for a Indonesian maid.

Never underestimate just how cheap human life is!

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testuser1984
41 minutes ago
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American Idiot kind
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shshsjsj
1 hour ago
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mild racism, needs to be reported
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aswegs8
1 hour ago
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It's a joke
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Faaak
1 hour ago
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you can call the police
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HoldOnAMinute
1 hour ago
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India is not a race, therefore this is not racist.
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brokensegue
2 hours ago
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personally, i've never had good luck with MT's quality.
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baggachipz
3 hours ago
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They moved all the Mechanical Turk workers over to robot and autotaxi piloting.
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teddyh
2 hours ago
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And monitoring of “cashier-free” grocery stores.
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