Slave to the machine

Artificial Artificial Intelligence?

Amazon are suggesting that humans could be relied on to provide input to computer programs.

Basically if a computer needs to do something, like identify a person in a photograph, it calls some procedure that works it out. But to do that effectively is very hard a problem to solve if you are trying to do it with computer software alone. The suggestion Amazon makes is that humans are really good at it, so why can't the human take the place of the software to perform that function?

They get a request, work it out and submit data back, like "yes, that's a person," or "no, that's a ford fiesta.".

Strange? Well, maybe. Also one step closer to adjusting our role in the digital world, perhaps?

Find more at The Amazon Mechanical Turk.