The Original Mechanical Turk (Via Wikipedia)
There’s plenty of mentions on Google’s Image Labeler. Here’s Steve Rubel’s description:
“what it does is allow individuals to label random images to help improve the quality of Google’s image search results. Participants are paired with partners who are also online and using the feature. Users earn points based on their input. Points are not redeemable for prizes.”
While there’s plenty of mention linking this to “Wisdom of the Crowds” meme, I think its more appropriate to mention how Google has borrowed a page from Amazon’s Mechnical Turk service, which is based on “HITS” and actual cash:
HIT stands for Human Intelligence Task. These are tasks that people are willing to pay you to complete. For example a HIT might ask: “Is there a pizza parlour in this photograph?” Typically these tasks are extraordinarily difficult for computers, but simple for humans to answer.
Hmmm…does this sound familiar to anyone?
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