Amazon Mechanical Turk

Filed in archive Business on November 8, 2005

Amazon surprised me recently with their Amazon Mechanical Turk service. To summarize my understanding of the service, it is a marketplace for developers to request human interaction to accomplish tasks that computers cannot easily perform. An example they provide is a human being identifying specific objects inside an image. Amazon provides the Web Services API, pricing structure and the ability to track transactions. Developers pay no up front fees to use the service but Amazon collects a 10% commission on all transactions.

In the past few years Amazon has lead the way with their user base creating content for them and developers directing traffic to them through existing Web Service APIs. Amazon's users rating productions, writing reviews and providing relevant feedback to other users is incredibly powerful. An army of Amazon employees could not do what the user community can for the company and those contributions have been made free of charge. The new Amazon Mechanical Turk service will take this to the next level. However, don't misunderstand the scope of this service. Amazon may use it themselves to boost their content offerings but it is the entire Internet community that can use the service for their own projects and with each transaction Amazon stands to make money.

Amazon's own description of the service is as follows:

Amazon Mechanical Turk provides a web services API for computers to integrate Artificial Artificial Intelligence directly into their processing by making requests of humans. Developers use the Amazon Mechanical Turk web services API to submit tasks to the Amazon Mechanical Turk web site, approve completed tasks, and incorporate the answers into their software applications. To the application, the transaction looks very much like any remote procedure call - the application sends the request, and the service returns the results. In reality, a network of humans fuels this Artificial Artificial Intelligence by coming to the web site, searching for and completing tasks, and receiving payment for their work.

Pricing

• There are no up-front fees to use the Amazon Mechanical Turk web service. Instead, Amazon Mechanical Turk collects a 10% commission on top of the amount you (the "Requester") have paid someone to complete your Human Intelligence Tasks ("HITs"). The minimum commission charge is $0.005 per HIT.


• For example, if a HIT pays $0.20, Amazon Mechanical Turk collects an additional $0.02 from the Requester.