Amazon.com's Web Services group has released a strange new tool for interactive web collaboration, the Mechanical Turk. This device is named after a 17th century 'chess computer' which was actually a wooden dummy operated by a chess master in a box out-of-view. The notion is that there are things that computers do well yet there are areas where humans still significantly outperform computers, like identifying specific images in photographs “- something children can do even before they learn to speak.”
“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.”
In the fanciful world in which Amazon has created for their 'Mechanical Turk', this tool is challenging notions of who controls whom; computers asking humans for help. However, the real world application is less involved with computers 'shelling out' to the real world for answers as it is a means to create a micro-task project assignment system, or Collaborative Human Interpreter.
In the daily business life, there are many occasions to request help, from proofreading to research to tasks which require a network of skilled individuals. There aren't always the resources handy to accomplish these goals. With a micro-project system which evaluates the performance of its humanodes and can require members of a qualified skill level to accomplish its tasks these needs can be pushed out to a disperate group of individuals anywhere in the world.
This presents some significant potential efficiencies in assigning projects and tasks and accomplishing goals. It will be interesting to see the questions raised by this near anonymous contract work.