Sunday, April 13, 2008

Human Intelligence Tasks

I love the concept of the Human Intelligence Task [ HIT ]. HIT is part of the Amazon Web Services. Amazon provides data storage, application serving, cloud computing, and now with HIT they are providing humans within the computers.


Example snippet from the website:

HITs - Human Intelligence Tasks - are individual tasks that you work on. Find HITs now.

As a Mechanical Turk Worker you:
  • Can work from home
  • Choose your own work hours
  • Get paid for doing good work

or learn more about being a Worker


This is progress, showing an exact line of demarcation of where the human and machine differ, and with that demarcation create a cooperative economic function involving both human and machine. The humans that design a HIT task, and the humans that accomplish a HIT task, are emblematic of a truly progressive cultural evolution.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

This is the most post-cyberpunk thing I've ever seen. Maybe I can work it into my position paper. Even pennies-per-hour work is sufficient for survival in roughly 50 countries.

Ryan Hawkes said...

I'm living in one of those countries right now. I could use a modest income so I decided to give it a shot.

This is a coup for those with resources. They can pay pennies for repetitive tasks. For me, even just wanting to earn $5/hr this site ain't going to cut it, and people with the skill set to complete some of the tasks (english, computers, internet, research etc) I find it hard to believe that the prices will stay this low.

This is the absolute fordist factory online. How long has this been happening. Commissions seem a bit low and I imagine that they will rise as tasks are not taken or are rejected based on what happens. I spent 3 hours working...and actually found tasks moderately rewarding (one to get logos for web2.0 websites - so I learned about new sites out there) so I took it on...but if it were meaningless to me, I could find more lucrative ways to make an income.

But as you say, there are countries where high incomes aren't needed...are the skillsets and access to necessary resources (yes some of these tasks required US experiences) going to cut it in these other countries.

The system will morph.

LanceMiller said...

Ryan,
I also noticed the tasks had extremely low pay, and thought the pay had to go up as tasks go undone at that price point.

And I agree, the system will morph.