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Mechanical turk is abusive. It bypasses the laws that were designed to protect the most vulnerable, and it will take some time for new laws to catch up that can

Mechanical turk is abusive. It bypasses the laws that were designed to protect the most vulnerable, and it will take some time for new laws to catch up that can regulate operations like mechanical turk. Just because new services and start ups have out maneuvered the law making system does not make those services ethical. "Workers relying on such low wages and unstable employment are not likely to be able to educate their children enough to escape increasingly high rates of unemployment. A sustainable form of crowdsourcing will require forms of collective governance that mitigate the effects of market competition on those treated as mere links in a chain of algorithmic logic." http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/18/the-unregulated-work-of-mechanical-turk/ http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/18/the-unregulated... Workers will do jobs for as little as 25 cents an hour. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/06/22/americans-will-work-for-25-cents-an-hour.html http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/06/22/americans-w... According to the nytimes article, 70% of the workers are women. For me, the possibility of paying an american woman 25 cents an hour so that I can get some press coverage is disgusting. When we needed data entry done, we hired some of our out of work friends for about $12-$15 per hour. It served our needs just fine and cost us about $1500 total. For fast turn arounds, I see why you would want mechanical turk, but planning ahead can give you the possibility of treating people ethically. I don't agree with any systems that perpetuate poverty. Mechanical Turk obviously provides a very valuable service to businesses however. Does anyone know if there any systems like mechanical turk that guarantee at least minimum wage is being paid to the workers?

robrenaud 13y ago
It's not as though Amazon is going and pointing a gun at people's heads and telling them to Turk or die. If it's a bad trade for people to exchange their time for the low wage, they shouldn't take it.
- sp332 13y ago
  This argument sounds good on paper, but it has centuries of evidence against it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_union#History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_union#History
  - pessimizer 13y ago
    It doesn't even sound good on paper. You don't have to work if somebody puts a gun to your head, either. You have the freedom of choice to take the bullet if that's your preference.
- tomgruner 13y ago
  Rob, as a software engineer at google, I would not expect you to to be able to relate to those without opportunities. In fact, there is some evidence that utilizing your brain to solve technical problems can restrict its ability to empathize. Of course amazon has no gun, but that does not mean that poverty in itself is not violent. As you like science and data, here is a read for you: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121030161416.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121030161416.ht...
  - tomgruner 13y ago
    FYI I am also a programmer and lack of empathy in my own life and relationships has caused me serious problems.
    - wehadfun 13y ago
      Wow maybe that's why I have some of these problems. Do you have any links to this evidence about solving problems causes lack of empathy
      - tomgruner 13y ago
        I don't have any good links or books unfortunately. There are a few people close to me that have a really great ability to empathize with others. They instantly understand social situations that will take me forever to get the dynamic. They respond to the needs of others much more quickly. I've tried to learn as much from them as possible - and often remember them when making decisions that have an impact others. But, I still have a long way to go. EDIT: I realized you are probably looking for that study. I don't think there is a free online version but you can purchase or read the abstract here: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811912010646 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811912...
      - hrktb 13y ago
        It's just an intuition, but solving problems as a job might make you see every issue or bad situation as something to solve. Not that it's wrong, but the focus slightly shifts from what the people are feeling to how the problem could or should be solved, and we might take less time or emotional resource to empathize. The situation itself can also be seen less as a tragedy than some sad transitory state waiting to be solved, and we'd be less sorry for someone if somewhere we think it might be just temporary. I'd too would love to find studies or evidence about this subject. Edit: A report on the study tomgrunner linked in the sibling comment http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-10/cwru-era103012.php http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-10/cwru-era10301...
- gnaritas 13y ago
  > If it's a bad trade for people to exchange their time for the low wage, they shouldn't take it. They may have little choice. You don't seem to understand what it means to be broke and unskilled.
  - icebraining 13y ago
    But isn't that real problem? Not that MTurtk is available, but that people have no better choice? Attacking low paying jobs satisfies our moral outrage, but it doesn't actually help those wrote are left with nothing. We should concentrate in making sure people don't have to choose MTurk out of desperation, and banning it doesn't achieve that. This doesn't mean Amazon and companies like it are innocent in this situation, of course, but it bothers me that people concentrate on the cosmetics instead of the systemic problems.
    - gnaritas 13y ago
      > Attacking low paying jobs satisfies our moral outrage, but it doesn't actually help those wrote are left with nothing. Yes it does, the minimum wage goes hand in hand with the social safety net. Banning low wage jobs pushes those with no better choice into the safety net which is better than letting them try and work 90 hour weeks at jobs that don't pay a living wage. This frees up their time to actually do something about the problem rather than being stuck just trying to feed yourself while you work yourself to the bone.
      - icebraining 13y ago
        So what you're saying is that they actually have a better option, but they're unable to realize that, so we should decide for them because we know best? Or is the safety net not available to them because MTurk exists? Because if it's the latter, I don't see why wouldn't you just make it available, MTurk or not.
        gnaritas 13y ago
        I'm not talking about MTurk specifically, but about all below minimum wage jobs. > but they're unable to realize that, so we should decide for them because we know best They are we, we are they, we're one society and if we democratically set a wage floor, then yes, we know best. That's rather the point of democracy, to remove choice about some things from the individual and make them together because it's better for us all despite what any one individual might choose. > Or is the safety net not available to them because MTurk exists? Because if it's the latter, I don't see why wouldn't you just make it available, MTurk or not. You'd be presuming the rules behind social programs are logical, they are not, they are designed by committee and as such can be haphazard and often illogical. Making money can actually hurt you if you're on the safety net because there's a hole where you're job would disqualify you for benefits that could exceed what the job would pay. Of course that varies state by state so there's no single answer to the question. So until the safety net is more logical and lets you work without putting you in a worse position, then it's rational to simply not allow jobs that don't pay a living wage. Many have proposed a basic income to avoid this problem.
justinwi 13y ago
Love your passion social justice. I share it, and I can understand how a cursory understanding of mTurk may feel exploitative. That said, it's clear neither the NYT nor the Daily Beast understand MTurk users - and because of that, they mistake a hobby for a job. For many people in the US, MTurk isn't about making money, it's about doing something while you're bored. It's not a replacement for a job, it's a replacement for Farmville. "Ever wonder what our labor market would look like without minimum wages or labor law protections?" If Turkers were paid with a virtual currency, there would be no comparison to minimum wages - but because they're paid with cash, the puzzles/work exists in a weird world between work and play. Also worth mentioning, I intentionally price my HITs low so as to target turkers who aren't looking to supplement their income. It only takes 5 minutes of trying to find one person's email address to realize $.03 isn't worth it - if your goal is to make money. I may be still missing the boat, but if Turkers really are doing this as a hobby - is it still exploitative?
- tomgruner 13y ago
  Hi Justin, that is a good point. According to this study in 2010 on page 4 http://sites.uci.edu/andrewzaldivar/files/2012/05/SocialCode-2009-01.pdf http://sites.uci.edu/andrewzaldivar/files/2012/05/SocialCode... about 82% of the survey responders answered that the income was not essential, but the other 18% responded that the income was either important or essential to make ends meet. Doing some turking to buy extra things while someone else pays your bills isn't exploitive in my opinion. But, for the 18% who are using is to make ends meet I do think it has a very real possibility to be exploitive. That's where regulation could help, in ensuring for those people who really need it have the safeguards in place to prevent the exploitation. I am far from an expert on Mechanical turk, and if it could guarantee that minimum wage was being met then I would not be against it.
jmduke 13y ago
(Disclaimer: I work for Amazon, but not on anything related to mTurk) Is there reason to believe that people are using mTurk full-time as a significant source of income? I've Turked a bunch -- and know people who do it for a couple hours a day -- and my understanding is that its overwhelmingly used as a way to pick up a few extra bucks while catching up on TV, a slightly more civilized replacement for clipping coupons or filling out paid surveys.
- tomgruner 13y ago
  According to the same 2010 study I mentioned in another comment, about 7% use it 30 hours per week plus. That's not a huge number but I imagine that those of the 7% would consider it full time work. http://sites.uci.edu/andrewzaldivar/files/2012/05/SocialCode-2009-01.pdf http://sites.uci.edu/andrewzaldivar/files/2012/05/SocialCode...
  - prostoalex 13y ago
    How do they check the workers' location? Some of that income could be considered decent lower-middle-class in certain parts of the world.
    - DanBC 13y ago
      I was doubtful at first, because of the need for both a computer (and Internet connection) in a part of the world where 25 cents an hour would be a decent lower-middle-class income. The World Bank has some information about countries with people living on $2 per day. (http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.2DAY http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.2DAY) Maybe there's a use for a "Fair Trade Mechanical Turk" - someone sets up an Internet work space for people in developing nations and FTMT sets minimum wages?
      - deleted 13y ago
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      - prostoalex 13y ago
pessimizer 13y ago
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/COLI_a_00057 http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/COLI_a_00057 "Amazon Mechanical Turk: Gold Mine or Coal Mine?" from Computational Linguistics.
entropyneur 13y ago
Care to elaborate what is the exact mechanism by which MT perpetuates poverty? Given two worlds, one with MT and one without, what exactly are the opportunities that poor people are deprived of in the former which are available in the latter?
- NolF 13y ago
  Basically, by spending so much time doing work for peanuts to make ends meet or as a primary source of income, they become reliant on that income and will not find opportunities elsewhere. The argument is that mTurk perpetuates and thrives on cheap labour. The solution is obvious, make the decision for them and deprive them of that source of income or legislate minimum wage rates... This in my opinion would be very shortsighted and harmful.
vincvinc 13y ago
> Does anyone know if there any systems like mechanical turk that guarantee at least minimum wage is being paid to the workers? I think that was the whole point behind Mobileworks, don't know how well they are doing though. https://www.mobileworks.com/company/fair-trade-work https://www.mobileworks.com/company/fair-trade-work
- anandkulkarni 13y ago
  We're doing quite well, as it so happens. Paying fair wages means better work output, which means you can get higher quality results, and actually means lower total cost. It's better business than trying to scrape usable results out of bottom-dollar markets like Turk, and far easier, to boot. We're growing fast and hiring: https://www.mobileworks.com/careers/ https://www.mobileworks.com/careers/
vdaniuk 13y ago
Your attempt to invoke strong emotions may be a useful rhetoric instrument, but it is absolutely not adding anything to those doing the jobs at MT. How in the world can you even waste your time on criticising use of a high-tech product that is available only to those with a computer and access to internet? Surely there are those who are exploited much much more than users of MT? Especially, if your own link shows that 82% of survey responders answered that the income was not essential. This is game theory all over again. If "ethical" people wont use MT, only the bad guys will reap the benefits of the increased efficiency. Shaming people doesn't help much if the "right" option is detrimental to their incentives. Moreover, your US-centrism is showing in full force. Don't you think that paying an Indian or Romanian 25 cents/hour is disgusting? Ok, you hired some of your friends for $12-15/h for mechanical job. So ethical. Why didn't you do that in an English-speaking part of the world where citizens live for less then $1 per day. Wouldnt it be more ethical? If you are concerned about education of poor children: spread knowledge about moocs, help with youth coding camps, tutor people or do free seminars. And if you are really-really concerned about the Mechanical Turk then by all means go ahead and teach people who are on MT how to earn more, that would be so much better than complaining on HN about the ethics of MT.
- tomgruner 13y ago
  I am not trying to shame anyone, and yes, I am involved in researching solutions for a project that aims to help people in poverty empower themselves through providing data processing services. I also accept lower wages to be able to work on projects that are beneficial socially and have rejected offers to work in industries like high frequency trading that were very lucrative. I have spent hundreds of hours volunteering in my life teaching reading, ged, and esl in low income and even volunteered to teach ged material in a jail. We can all help in many ways, but the main point is having good regulation and rules is beneficial to capitalism. The best solution would be proper regulation of mturk to make sure that all businesses are on a level playing ground, whether they use mturk or another solution that at the moment may be more expensive in order to ensure minimum wage. But until that regulation happens, or mturk ensures minimum wage, I won't use mturk for any project.
blablabla123 13y ago
25 cents per hour is roughly 45 $ a month. (8 h/day, 22 working days/month) I guess someone who would work for that wage lives in a rough country. As we all know from the news and documentaries, those countries often have horrible working conditions, like 60 hours or more a week and physically hard work. Isn't a mTurk job better than that? Also don't forget the lower prices in such regions. The thing is this: NGOs and friends are trying since decades to solve humanitarian problems. Unfortunately they suck incredibly at what they are doing. The countries stay poor, the working conditions stay bad, war and crime continue. I strongly believe that economical prosperity automatically leads to better living and working conditions. Just look at the African countries the Chinese got their hands in. BTW, don't forget that there is not only competition between the workers but also between those submitting jobs. I.e. many mTurk users => more competition on the income side. Even better: competition with same working standards. You don't even have that in the U.S.!
- Dylan16807 13y ago
  The comment you're replying to very clearly focused on such a wage as being bad in the US. Sure, if the worker is somewhere that 25 cents an hour is livable, then everything works out okay.
umsm 13y ago
Why not pay the workers on mturk a reasonable rate of $12 - $15 an hour? Isn't the wage set by YOU, the employer?
patrickphilips 13y ago
$0.03 per email seems awfully low, and if you do 1 article per minute, you're making $2 an hour, which is definitely not cool. But how long does it actually take to find one email from an article? Maybe 10-15 seconds? Then you're talking about $7-$10 per hour, which for unskilled work doesn't feel especially exploitative. The real draw of systems like mechanical turk is not that labor is cheaper (it usually isn't), but that's it's more flexible, i.e. you don't have to hire and train people for any particular task.
bcoates 13y ago
Are the small number of people depending on Mechanical Turk for real money actually capable of doing regular minimum wage labor? We already have broad exceptions to minimum wage laws that allow the marginally employable (seriously disabled, mostly) to work for less than customary sums of money while also collecting disability benefits. Having someone who's medically unable to work or who is primarily a full-time caretaker have a home job that makes them a supplemental income on the side, even at $.25/hr, doesn't sound like an unethical or abusive system to me. (also, turkers who are doing transcription a lot probably know how to do 4x pitch corrected fast forward on their audio player and have a good enough ear for voice to pick out the odd words)
nerfhammer 13y ago
The substantiation of the $0.25/hour claim is that they were able to find three people who were willing to work for that much on one task, once. I think this is extremely weak evidence to base a lot of outrage on or to make a claim of what the market hourly rate is on MT.
espadagroup 13y ago
As one data point, I spent a while during college and took Turking seriously as a source of income and averaged about $7-$8 an hour over that time period. Not awesome, but not bad either for an always available, willing, form of employment.
- aantix 13y ago
  "Always available" and and incredibly flexible form of employment. There aren't many jobs where you can sit down, make some money, when you need to take a break (kids screaming, etc), you can stop, resume again when you're ready. The flexibility is worth something.
aantix 13y ago
Certainly they performed jobs for 25 cents an hour, but that rate just isn't sustainable if you actually want to get fast, reliant results. Just as the requesters on MTurk are smart, so are the workers (aka Turkers). If you hang around the market place long enough you will quickly discover that your time is worth much more than 25 cents an hour. The Turkers are smart; high throughput is the only way they are going to make any money. As a requester, someone posting work, if you don't respect that in terms of 1) streaming-lining your instructions to simplify the work for the Turkers, and 2) giving a descent wage relative to the work needed The Turkers will go elsewhere and your results are just going to trickle in. MTurk is actually a perfect marketplace, as a worker you can see ALL of the jobs that you are qualified, all of the competing bids for a piece of your time in one consolidated place, and you can choose how and when to work instantly or whether you want to work at all.
Stratoscope 13y ago
Here's where I get confused by this economic justice: I have a little personal project and there's a piece of it that could be hired out on mechanical turk. The project isn't worth much much money to me, it really is just a point of personal interest. And the little task is interesting enough that a few people might actually do it for free. So I could ask for volunteers. Worse things have happened: how many times do people fill out surveys completely for free? Surely no one would say I'm exploiting anyone by allowing them to volunteer their time? After all, it's their free choice if they want to waste a few minutes on my silly project. But apparently I would be exploiting them if I offered a modest sum as a small "thank you". Why?
- victorf 13y ago
  Cognitive bias is human nature. The example I read is you'd get many more lawyers working pro bono for charity than you would offering a low wage. This of course extends to our perception of other people doing it. I for one think we should remove minimum wage entirely but give everyone adequate food and healthcare. If people didn't go bankrupt after a serious injury and had enough food to wait out crappy offers, an appropriate wage would appear naturally.
- Dylan16807 13y ago
  It wouldn't be exploitative if the money was merely a thank you. But the money wouldn't be merely a thank you. Not for everyone. If you were making a standard offering on mechanical turk it's likely* that you would find workers that are in poverty, needing it as income, finding themselves working obscene numbers of hours. As example, a system that tries to get someone to work 90 hour weeks can easily be worse than no income at all. *based on the GP, no personal research done
mindcrime 13y ago
So, all of the people making $0.25 / hour doing MT tasks, would be making exactly how much per hour without MT? I don't agree with any systems that perpetuate poverty. I, OTOH, agree with any system that doesn't involve initiation of force or fraud, and involves voluntary transactions on a free market basis.
seeingfurther 13y ago
I thought most folks (at least US based) performed the work on the side. Such as receptionists with lots of down time or late night security guards. A lot of this is just busy work. Click this if it's porn... fill in an email from the linked page... categorize this image. Am I totally off base?
pjbrunet 13y ago
Check out what Peter Schiff says about the minimum wage. He has some good, reasonable arguments IMO. The minimum wage ultimately hurts everyone. Minimum wage = fewer jobs (quantity and types of jobs) and higher prices.
muhammadatt 13y ago
I don't disagree with this sentiment, but I don't think it is correct to say that Mechanical Turk itself is abusive. Mechanical Turk certainly CAN be abused, but it also CAN be used ethically. For example, we regularly use MT to complete tasks that pay workers effective hourly wages in the range of $8-20 per hour, and I know several other requesters who pay similarly. It is probably most accurate to say that the lack of worker safeguards on MT attracts many users who pay rates that are (IMHO correctly) classified as abusive. Part of the issue with MT is that traditional worker protections like a minimum wage no longer make sense when you have compensation that is paid on a per-task rather than per-hour basis. Under a per-task compensatory system, faster workers will always earn more money (on an hourly basis) than slower workers. For the tasks we do, it is not uncommon for subsets of workers to earn effective hourly rates almost three times as high as others. In many ways this is good - incenting workers to spend their time on tasks that they can complete most effeciently (and away from tasks that they are less suited for) helps promote the most efficient allocation of labor resources. But how do you ensure that all workers will always be treated fairly when a minimum wage no longer makes sense? What do you replace it with? Its not clear that there is a simple replacement that works in the micro-tasking context. Our platform (http://houdiniapp.com http://houdiniapp.com) helps businesses complete projects on MTurk. One of the things we realized is that many requesters pay low wages simply because they are really bad at estimating how long tasks actually take to complete. We’ve been able to solve this (somewhat) by providing tools that provide real-time feedback on average completion times in order to provide direct visibility into real hourly wages. However we allow users to set their own compensation and some users still end up paying effective wages in the $2-3 (which we do not encourage, but don't have any simple way to prevent).

robrenaud 13y ago

It's not as though Amazon is going and pointing a gun at people's heads and telling them to Turk or die. If it's a bad trade for people to exchange their time for the low wage, they shouldn't take it.

sp332 13y ago
This argument sounds good on paper, but it has centuries of evidence against it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_union#History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_union#History
- pessimizer 13y ago
  It doesn't even sound good on paper. You don't have to work if somebody puts a gun to your head, either. You have the freedom of choice to take the bullet if that's your preference.
tomgruner 13y ago
Rob, as a software engineer at google, I would not expect you to to be able to relate to those without opportunities. In fact, there is some evidence that utilizing your brain to solve technical problems can restrict its ability to empathize. Of course amazon has no gun, but that does not mean that poverty in itself is not violent. As you like science and data, here is a read for you: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121030161416.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121030161416.ht...
- tomgruner 13y ago
  FYI I am also a programmer and lack of empathy in my own life and relationships has caused me serious problems.
  - wehadfun 13y ago
    Wow maybe that's why I have some of these problems. Do you have any links to this evidence about solving problems causes lack of empathy
    - tomgruner 13y ago
      I don't have any good links or books unfortunately. There are a few people close to me that have a really great ability to empathize with others. They instantly understand social situations that will take me forever to get the dynamic. They respond to the needs of others much more quickly. I've tried to learn as much from them as possible - and often remember them when making decisions that have an impact others. But, I still have a long way to go. EDIT: I realized you are probably looking for that study. I don't think there is a free online version but you can purchase or read the abstract here: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811912010646 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811912...
    - hrktb 13y ago
      It's just an intuition, but solving problems as a job might make you see every issue or bad situation as something to solve. Not that it's wrong, but the focus slightly shifts from what the people are feeling to how the problem could or should be solved, and we might take less time or emotional resource to empathize. The situation itself can also be seen less as a tragedy than some sad transitory state waiting to be solved, and we'd be less sorry for someone if somewhere we think it might be just temporary. I'd too would love to find studies or evidence about this subject. Edit: A report on the study tomgrunner linked in the sibling comment http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-10/cwru-era103012.php http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-10/cwru-era10301...
gnaritas 13y ago
> If it's a bad trade for people to exchange their time for the low wage, they shouldn't take it. They may have little choice. You don't seem to understand what it means to be broke and unskilled.
- icebraining 13y ago
  But isn't that real problem? Not that MTurtk is available, but that people have no better choice? Attacking low paying jobs satisfies our moral outrage, but it doesn't actually help those wrote are left with nothing. We should concentrate in making sure people don't have to choose MTurk out of desperation, and banning it doesn't achieve that. This doesn't mean Amazon and companies like it are innocent in this situation, of course, but it bothers me that people concentrate on the cosmetics instead of the systemic problems.
  - gnaritas 13y ago
    > Attacking low paying jobs satisfies our moral outrage, but it doesn't actually help those wrote are left with nothing. Yes it does, the minimum wage goes hand in hand with the social safety net. Banning low wage jobs pushes those with no better choice into the safety net which is better than letting them try and work 90 hour weeks at jobs that don't pay a living wage. This frees up their time to actually do something about the problem rather than being stuck just trying to feed yourself while you work yourself to the bone.
    - icebraining 13y ago
      So what you're saying is that they actually have a better option, but they're unable to realize that, so we should decide for them because we know best? Or is the safety net not available to them because MTurk exists? Because if it's the latter, I don't see why wouldn't you just make it available, MTurk or not.
      - gnaritas 13y ago
        I'm not talking about MTurk specifically, but about all below minimum wage jobs. > but they're unable to realize that, so we should decide for them because we know best They are we, we are they, we're one society and if we democratically set a wage floor, then yes, we know best. That's rather the point of democracy, to remove choice about some things from the individual and make them together because it's better for us all despite what any one individual might choose. > Or is the safety net not available to them because MTurk exists? Because if it's the latter, I don't see why wouldn't you just make it available, MTurk or not. You'd be presuming the rules behind social programs are logical, they are not, they are designed by committee and as such can be haphazard and often illogical. Making money can actually hurt you if you're on the safety net because there's a hole where you're job would disqualify you for benefits that could exceed what the job would pay. Of course that varies state by state so there's no single answer to the question. So until the safety net is more logical and lets you work without putting you in a worse position, then it's rational to simply not allow jobs that don't pay a living wage. Many have proposed a basic income to avoid this problem.

justinwi 13y ago

Love your passion social justice. I share it, and I can understand how a cursory understanding of mTurk may feel exploitative. That said, it's clear neither the NYT nor the Daily Beast understand MTurk users - and because of that, they mistake a hobby for a job. For many people in the US, MTurk isn't about making money, it's about doing something while you're bored. It's not a replacement for a job, it's a replacement for Farmville. "Ever wonder what our labor market would look like without minimum wages or labor law protections?" If Turkers were paid with a virtual currency, there would be no comparison to minimum wages - but because they're paid with cash, the puzzles/work exists in a weird world between work and play. Also worth mentioning, I intentionally price my HITs low so as to target turkers who aren't looking to supplement their income. It only takes 5 minutes of trying to find one person's email address to realize $.03 isn't worth it - if your goal is to make money. I may be still missing the boat, but if Turkers really are doing this as a hobby - is it still exploitative?

tomgruner 13y ago
Hi Justin, that is a good point. According to this study in 2010 on page 4 http://sites.uci.edu/andrewzaldivar/files/2012/05/SocialCode-2009-01.pdf http://sites.uci.edu/andrewzaldivar/files/2012/05/SocialCode... about 82% of the survey responders answered that the income was not essential, but the other 18% responded that the income was either important or essential to make ends meet. Doing some turking to buy extra things while someone else pays your bills isn't exploitive in my opinion. But, for the 18% who are using is to make ends meet I do think it has a very real possibility to be exploitive. That's where regulation could help, in ensuring for those people who really need it have the safeguards in place to prevent the exploitation. I am far from an expert on Mechanical turk, and if it could guarantee that minimum wage was being met then I would not be against it.

jmduke 13y ago

(Disclaimer: I work for Amazon, but not on anything related to mTurk) Is there reason to believe that people are using mTurk full-time as a significant source of income? I've Turked a bunch -- and know people who do it for a couple hours a day -- and my understanding is that its overwhelmingly used as a way to pick up a few extra bucks while catching up on TV, a slightly more civilized replacement for clipping coupons or filling out paid surveys.

tomgruner 13y ago
According to the same 2010 study I mentioned in another comment, about 7% use it 30 hours per week plus. That's not a huge number but I imagine that those of the 7% would consider it full time work. http://sites.uci.edu/andrewzaldivar/files/2012/05/SocialCode-2009-01.pdf http://sites.uci.edu/andrewzaldivar/files/2012/05/SocialCode...
- prostoalex 13y ago
  How do they check the workers' location? Some of that income could be considered decent lower-middle-class in certain parts of the world.
  - DanBC 13y ago
    I was doubtful at first, because of the need for both a computer (and Internet connection) in a part of the world where 25 cents an hour would be a decent lower-middle-class income. The World Bank has some information about countries with people living on $2 per day. (http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.2DAY http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.2DAY) Maybe there's a use for a "Fair Trade Mechanical Turk" - someone sets up an Internet work space for people in developing nations and FTMT sets minimum wages?
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    - prostoalex 13y ago

pessimizer 13y ago

http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/COLI_a_00057 http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/COLI_a_00057 "Amazon Mechanical Turk: Gold Mine or Coal Mine?" from Computational Linguistics.

entropyneur 13y ago

Care to elaborate what is the exact mechanism by which MT perpetuates poverty? Given two worlds, one with MT and one without, what exactly are the opportunities that poor people are deprived of in the former which are available in the latter?

NolF 13y ago
Basically, by spending so much time doing work for peanuts to make ends meet or as a primary source of income, they become reliant on that income and will not find opportunities elsewhere. The argument is that mTurk perpetuates and thrives on cheap labour. The solution is obvious, make the decision for them and deprive them of that source of income or legislate minimum wage rates... This in my opinion would be very shortsighted and harmful.

vincvinc 13y ago

> Does anyone know if there any systems like mechanical turk that guarantee at least minimum wage is being paid to the workers? I think that was the whole point behind Mobileworks, don't know how well they are doing though. https://www.mobileworks.com/company/fair-trade-work https://www.mobileworks.com/company/fair-trade-work

anandkulkarni 13y ago
We're doing quite well, as it so happens. Paying fair wages means better work output, which means you can get higher quality results, and actually means lower total cost. It's better business than trying to scrape usable results out of bottom-dollar markets like Turk, and far easier, to boot. We're growing fast and hiring: https://www.mobileworks.com/careers/ https://www.mobileworks.com/careers/

vdaniuk 13y ago

Your attempt to invoke strong emotions may be a useful rhetoric instrument, but it is absolutely not adding anything to those doing the jobs at MT. How in the world can you even waste your time on criticising use of a high-tech product that is available only to those with a computer and access to internet? Surely there are those who are exploited much much more than users of MT? Especially, if your own link shows that 82% of survey responders answered that the income was not essential. This is game theory all over again. If "ethical" people wont use MT, only the bad guys will reap the benefits of the increased efficiency. Shaming people doesn't help much if the "right" option is detrimental to their incentives. Moreover, your US-centrism is showing in full force. Don't you think that paying an Indian or Romanian 25 cents/hour is disgusting? Ok, you hired some of your friends for $12-15/h for mechanical job. So ethical. Why didn't you do that in an English-speaking part of the world where citizens live for less then $1 per day. Wouldnt it be more ethical? If you are concerned about education of poor children: spread knowledge about moocs, help with youth coding camps, tutor people or do free seminars. And if you are really-really concerned about the Mechanical Turk then by all means go ahead and teach people who are on MT how to earn more, that would be so much better than complaining on HN about the ethics of MT.

tomgruner 13y ago
I am not trying to shame anyone, and yes, I am involved in researching solutions for a project that aims to help people in poverty empower themselves through providing data processing services. I also accept lower wages to be able to work on projects that are beneficial socially and have rejected offers to work in industries like high frequency trading that were very lucrative. I have spent hundreds of hours volunteering in my life teaching reading, ged, and esl in low income and even volunteered to teach ged material in a jail. We can all help in many ways, but the main point is having good regulation and rules is beneficial to capitalism. The best solution would be proper regulation of mturk to make sure that all businesses are on a level playing ground, whether they use mturk or another solution that at the moment may be more expensive in order to ensure minimum wage. But until that regulation happens, or mturk ensures minimum wage, I won't use mturk for any project.

blablabla123 13y ago

25 cents per hour is roughly 45 $ a month. (8 h/day, 22 working days/month) I guess someone who would work for that wage lives in a rough country. As we all know from the news and documentaries, those countries often have horrible working conditions, like 60 hours or more a week and physically hard work. Isn't a mTurk job better than that? Also don't forget the lower prices in such regions. The thing is this: NGOs and friends are trying since decades to solve humanitarian problems. Unfortunately they suck incredibly at what they are doing. The countries stay poor, the working conditions stay bad, war and crime continue. I strongly believe that economical prosperity automatically leads to better living and working conditions. Just look at the African countries the Chinese got their hands in. BTW, don't forget that there is not only competition between the workers but also between those submitting jobs. I.e. many mTurk users => more competition on the income side. Even better: competition with same working standards. You don't even have that in the U.S.!

Dylan16807 13y ago
The comment you're replying to very clearly focused on such a wage as being bad in the US. Sure, if the worker is somewhere that 25 cents an hour is livable, then everything works out okay.

umsm 13y ago

Why not pay the workers on mturk a reasonable rate of $12 - $15 an hour? Isn't the wage set by YOU, the employer?

patrickphilips 13y ago

$0.03 per email seems awfully low, and if you do 1 article per minute, you're making $2 an hour, which is definitely not cool. But how long does it actually take to find one email from an article? Maybe 10-15 seconds? Then you're talking about $7-$10 per hour, which for unskilled work doesn't feel especially exploitative. The real draw of systems like mechanical turk is not that labor is cheaper (it usually isn't), but that's it's more flexible, i.e. you don't have to hire and train people for any particular task.

bcoates 13y ago

Are the small number of people depending on Mechanical Turk for real money actually capable of doing regular minimum wage labor? We already have broad exceptions to minimum wage laws that allow the marginally employable (seriously disabled, mostly) to work for less than customary sums of money while also collecting disability benefits. Having someone who's medically unable to work or who is primarily a full-time caretaker have a home job that makes them a supplemental income on the side, even at $.25/hr, doesn't sound like an unethical or abusive system to me. (also, turkers who are doing transcription a lot probably know how to do 4x pitch corrected fast forward on their audio player and have a good enough ear for voice to pick out the odd words)

nerfhammer 13y ago

The substantiation of the $0.25/hour claim is that they were able to find three people who were willing to work for that much on one task, once. I think this is extremely weak evidence to base a lot of outrage on or to make a claim of what the market hourly rate is on MT.

espadagroup 13y ago

As one data point, I spent a while during college and took Turking seriously as a source of income and averaged about $7-$8 an hour over that time period. Not awesome, but not bad either for an always available, willing, form of employment.

aantix 13y ago
"Always available" and and incredibly flexible form of employment. There aren't many jobs where you can sit down, make some money, when you need to take a break (kids screaming, etc), you can stop, resume again when you're ready. The flexibility is worth something.

aantix 13y ago

Certainly they performed jobs for 25 cents an hour, but that rate just isn't sustainable if you actually want to get fast, reliant results. Just as the requesters on MTurk are smart, so are the workers (aka Turkers). If you hang around the market place long enough you will quickly discover that your time is worth much more than 25 cents an hour. The Turkers are smart; high throughput is the only way they are going to make any money. As a requester, someone posting work, if you don't respect that in terms of 1) streaming-lining your instructions to simplify the work for the Turkers, and 2) giving a descent wage relative to the work needed The Turkers will go elsewhere and your results are just going to trickle in. MTurk is actually a perfect marketplace, as a worker you can see ALL of the jobs that you are qualified, all of the competing bids for a piece of your time in one consolidated place, and you can choose how and when to work instantly or whether you want to work at all.

Stratoscope 13y ago

Here's where I get confused by this economic justice: I have a little personal project and there's a piece of it that could be hired out on mechanical turk. The project isn't worth much much money to me, it really is just a point of personal interest. And the little task is interesting enough that a few people might actually do it for free. So I could ask for volunteers. Worse things have happened: how many times do people fill out surveys completely for free? Surely no one would say I'm exploiting anyone by allowing them to volunteer their time? After all, it's their free choice if they want to waste a few minutes on my silly project. But apparently I would be exploiting them if I offered a modest sum as a small "thank you". Why?

victorf 13y ago
Cognitive bias is human nature. The example I read is you'd get many more lawyers working pro bono for charity than you would offering a low wage. This of course extends to our perception of other people doing it. I for one think we should remove minimum wage entirely but give everyone adequate food and healthcare. If people didn't go bankrupt after a serious injury and had enough food to wait out crappy offers, an appropriate wage would appear naturally.
Dylan16807 13y ago
It wouldn't be exploitative if the money was merely a thank you. But the money wouldn't be merely a thank you. Not for everyone. If you were making a standard offering on mechanical turk it's likely* that you would find workers that are in poverty, needing it as income, finding themselves working obscene numbers of hours. As example, a system that tries to get someone to work 90 hour weeks can easily be worse than no income at all. *based on the GP, no personal research done

mindcrime 13y ago

So, all of the people making $0.25 / hour doing MT tasks, would be making exactly how much per hour without MT? I don't agree with any systems that perpetuate poverty. I, OTOH, agree with any system that doesn't involve initiation of force or fraud, and involves voluntary transactions on a free market basis.

seeingfurther 13y ago

I thought most folks (at least US based) performed the work on the side. Such as receptionists with lots of down time or late night security guards. A lot of this is just busy work. Click this if it's porn... fill in an email from the linked page... categorize this image. Am I totally off base?

pjbrunet 13y ago

Check out what Peter Schiff says about the minimum wage. He has some good, reasonable arguments IMO. The minimum wage ultimately hurts everyone. Minimum wage = fewer jobs (quantity and types of jobs) and higher prices.

muhammadatt 13y ago

I don't disagree with this sentiment, but I don't think it is correct to say that Mechanical Turk itself is abusive. Mechanical Turk certainly CAN be abused, but it also CAN be used ethically. For example, we regularly use MT to complete tasks that pay workers effective hourly wages in the range of $8-20 per hour, and I know several other requesters who pay similarly. It is probably most accurate to say that the lack of worker safeguards on MT attracts many users who pay rates that are (IMHO correctly) classified as abusive. Part of the issue with MT is that traditional worker protections like a minimum wage no longer make sense when you have compensation that is paid on a per-task rather than per-hour basis. Under a per-task compensatory system, faster workers will always earn more money (on an hourly basis) than slower workers. For the tasks we do, it is not uncommon for subsets of workers to earn effective hourly rates almost three times as high as others. In many ways this is good - incenting workers to spend their time on tasks that they can complete most effeciently (and away from tasks that they are less suited for) helps promote the most efficient allocation of labor resources. But how do you ensure that all workers will always be treated fairly when a minimum wage no longer makes sense? What do you replace it with? Its not clear that there is a simple replacement that works in the micro-tasking context. Our platform (http://houdiniapp.com http://houdiniapp.com) helps businesses complete projects on MTurk. One of the things we realized is that many requesters pay low wages simply because they are really bad at estimating how long tasks actually take to complete. We’ve been able to solve this (somewhat) by providing tools that provide real-time feedback on average completion times in order to provide direct visibility into real hourly wages. However we allow users to set their own compensation and some users still end up paying effective wages in the $2-3 (which we do not encourage, but don't have any simple way to prevent).