CodesInChaos 1 hour 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.

  • moralestapia 1 hour 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 56 minutes ago

      You were using LLMs in 2012?

      • simlevesque 50 minutes ago

        They were faking artificial intelligence by using real individuals.

      • pixel_popping 49 minutes ago

        Fiverr-5.5 was the leading model back then.

      • moralestapia 20 minutes ago

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

obblekk 13 minutes 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.

nullsmack 2 hours 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.

root-parent 32 minutes 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.

leohonexus 7 minutes ago

Where do I find participants for my user studies then?

baggachipz 1 hour ago

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

  • teddyh 49 minutes ago

    And monitoring of “cashier-free” grocery stores.

josefritzishere 2 hours ago

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

  • xandrius 2 hours ago

    It's still AI, just a different type.

  • brokensegue 33 minutes ago

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