Does Amazon's Clickworker Platform Exploit Its Workers? (techrepublic.com)

500,000 people signed up for Amazon's Mechanical Turk, one of several online microjobs platforms that "let companies break jobs into smaller tasks and offer them to people across the globe," reports TechRepublic. But though these workers have trouble communicating directly with Amazon, in any given month about 20,000 of them may be active, "part of an invisible, online workforce -- one that is increasingly in demand for their vital role in helping train intelligent machines."

But are these platforms part of a disturbing new trend? Long-time Slashdot reader Paul Fernhout writes: Hope Reese and Nick Heath at TechRepublic ask: "do they democratize work or exploit the disempowered?" The article says: "Just over half of Turkers earn below the US federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, according to a Pew Research Center study." The article quotes people who believe "it will become increasingly common for computer systems to orchestrate labor." That trend was also was the beginning of Marshall Brain's "Manna" short story.

Comments

Basic Income

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it easy to exploit independent contractors? What about Uber, aren't they contractors? I don't know if they're being exploited. But maybe the solution is to tax the rich, including rich companies, to help pay for a basic income of sorts.

Something like...
For citizens and permanent residents
$750/month/65+ year old or Social Security, whichever is higher.
$500/month/22-65 year old
$250/month/21-
With a 10% tax on AGI.
If we scrap S.N.A.P., increase those figures by $200/month/person.

Having a guaranteed income of sorts, even a minor one like this, would help independent contracts, artists, etc. People with unstable incomes.

I figure this could cost $1.2 trillion per year. Any thoughts?

Re:Basic Income

[Anonymous Coward]

How did I get modded down while you get modded up?

I said, "But maybe the solution is to tax the rich, including rich companies, to help pay for a basic income of sorts."

And taxing 10% of AGI isn't just taxing poor people, it taxes middle income and upper income people too. And the 10% thing is for a fairness. So if some 21-65 year old is earning $10k/year, they'll pay $1k, but they'll be getting $6k for a net of $5k for the year. Not factoring in any children they have.

My suggestion of a Basic Income as such wasn't to detract from the topic of exploitation, but offer a solution to the nature of being an independent contract, which is income instability. If said independent contractors were to receive a guaranteed income, then the desperation to work for low wages becomes less so, or more of a choice.

Re:Basic Income

[BarbaraHudson]

So just how is someone under 65 going to survive on $500 a month? Or someone over 65 on $750? You would have to also bring in universal healthcare and pharmacare with no deductibles, no co-pays, no insurance premiums. Otherwise, you've signed the death warrants of honest people, while the crooks will always manage to survive and even prosper.

And saying "death warrants" is not an exaggeration.

Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide. Remember, 26% of the US population will experience at least one depressive episode in their lifetimes. Economic distress doesn't help.

Re:Basic Income

[drinkypoo]

So Britain's system of universal, government-run healthcare drives people to suicide and... you think that's an argument for universal, government-run healthcare?

Even assuming for the moment that is true, it's irrelevant; the comparison should be whether such a system drives more people to suicide than a system in which they can't get health care at all. Right now there is an immense profit motive in fucking over the patient. For example, one acquaintance just posted about getting basically no medical care (they were denied medication because of an out of state but perfectly valid prescription, in spite of every state being constitutionally obligated to respect the laws of other states) and charged a thousand dollars for the privilege of being fucked over. You don't think that drives people to suicide? Going further into debt in exchange for not getting health care?

If you want to make some kind of meaningful comparison, be our guest. Until then, please fuck off.

Re:Basic Income

[BarbaraHudson]

Can't you even read past your preconceptions? It's not the health care system in Britain that is driving people to suicide. It's the cutting of benefits to those who need them the most.

And as for your "as a crook, you ought to know yourself", coming from an Anonymous Coward, that's Apple-style "courageous." I have no criminal record whatsoever. That's a matter of public record, since you can't serve on a jury if you have a criminal record or are charged with a criminal offence. You can't say the same.

Why US minimum wage as standard?

[MightyYar]

Why the heck us the US minimum wage as a standard to compare against? These people can be anywhere in the world - better to compare to their local minimum wage... Or better yet, typical wages for this type of work in their locality.

Re:Why US minimum wage as standard?

[dinfinity]

From TFA:
"Who are Turkers? [...] About 75% are Americans, roughly 15-20% are from India, and the remaining 10% are from other countries."

Re:Why US minimum wage as standard?

[drinkypoo]

You can't increase living standards or wealth through protectionism; attempts to do so are the economic equivalent of a perpetual motion machine.

You can't do it solely through protectionism. But it can be a useful tool, in the right situation. You have to have people who can do things (check) and people who can make things (check) and you have to make things other people want to buy (check.)

China isn't changing itself with protectionism alone. They also are building infrastructure. That pays dividends, eventually. They'd pay more if they let people have things.

Re:Why US minimum wage as standard?

[ShanghaiBill]

Protectionism and mercantilism rear their ugly heads again.

The heads are not rearing because they never went away. Protectionism is a solution that is simple, obvious, and wrong. It has always been popular among people that don't think about an issue for more than 30 seconds. Another "simple, obvious, and wrong" solution is to use coercive laws to roll back social behavior to a fantasy version of the 1950s, when queers stayed in the closet, women knew their place, and every white man had a good paying job for life. The genius of Donald Trump was to realize that there are many, many people in America that believe in both of these things. By combining the Democratic Party's knee-jerk protectionism with Republican social conservatism, he has a winning formula.

Re:Why US minimum wage as standard?

[silentcoder]

It's kind of odd that protectionism has such a bad rep. The US became the richest country in the world almost entirely thanks to protectionism. Adam Smith's economic ideas were rejected in his day - and for 200 years after, it was the Hamilton plan that governed US economic relations for the first few centuries and that was an extremely protectionist approach. Hell the US didn't even recognise foreign copyrights until the 1920s (while trying to pressure other countries to recognise US copyrights).
The US only became anti-protectionist after world war 2 really, when their major industrial competitors (Germany, Britain and Itally) were laid to waste by the war, and US businesses saw a huge potential for making massive profits by selling to foreigners who could no longer buy from these countries. Suddenly it made sense to stop being protectionist so you could open up those markets even if it meant opening up your own.

It's quite a valid question whether this is still true today. It could very well be that the best thing to do for the US is to go back to protectionism and nourish an economy where US companies are a lot smaller because they barely sell outside the US - but they employ Americans and sell to Americans. Then you only open up those specific markets where you cannot produce sufficiently at home (perhaps they rely on a resource the US has a shortage of).
Of course, if you do that, and you're not an asshole - then you would support other countries doing the same - including cutting out US producers in favor of local ones (whether the US can avoid being an asshole is debateable, it's happened on occasion but this is definitely not the rule).

I'm generally anti-nationalist and consider the very concept of countries and borders to be arbitrary and senseless, I have every reason to reject protectionism as being utterly incompatible with my moral beliefs - but I wouldn't be so dishonest as to pretend it didn't work.

Exploitative by design?

[swb]

It seems like these systems are exploitative by design, even if exploitation wasn't explicitly the goal. They're designed with every possible algorithm and available data to maximize labor output at the lowest possible cost. Individual workers are operating at extreme information asymmetry and against a system which does not negotiate and only offers a take it or leave it choice.

While this reduction in labor costs may have some broader macroeconomic value, making some goods or services cheaper and more widely available it seems like the end result would ultimately just look like labor exploitation.

Re:Exploitative by design?

[ThatsMyNick]

I used to do turk when I was in college (years ago). All I did was academic surveys and tests for academic studies. I dont think it was anywhere close to minimum wage, but I had fun and I enjoyed doing it. Some of them will also invite me for follow up studies. I can tell for sure those researchers did not intent to exploit, nor did I felt exploited. It would good beer money.

Re:Exploitative by design?

[khallow]

It seems like these systems are exploitative by design, even if exploitation wasn't explicitly the goal. They're designed with every possible algorithm and available data to maximize labor output at the lowest possible cost. Individual workers are operating at extreme information asymmetry and against a system which does not negotiate and only offers a take it or leave it choice.

I sure hope these systems are exploitive. Labor is only empowering when it is exploited. And what is forgotten is that workers exploit the system as well. They get money which they value more than their work. And another name for mutual exploitation is cooperation.

The information asymmetry and those algorithms aren't that extreme or that relevant. Individual would-be workers get plenty of information from such markets just from pricing and work requirements. And they have better knowledge of their personal condition and what options, including regular work, that they can do instead.

Also, take it or leave it still allows for a lot of negotiation. As I implied earlier, there are multiple potential employers out there. And if the payout isn't good enough, the potential employer will either have to offer more or just leave it. Negotiation enters the picture, if they choose not to leave it themselves.

It's really sad to see such widespread misunderstanding of labor economics. The world is becoming a vastly better place precisely because peoples' labor can and is exploited. It not only empowers people and allows them to better their lot in life, it creates more opportunities for labor-based exploitation and empowerment. There are few human activities with that kind of positive feedback.

Things like Mechanical Turk fix the very problems that you complain they have. I think it would be better to get out of the way rather than than issue a complaint that really boils down to there being desperate people. There won't be less desperate people just because we interfere with and obstruct some of the means for lessening such desperation.

Re:Exploitative by design?

[ShanghaiBill]

The gig economy, zero-hours contracts - it's all pushing the casualisation of the workforce.

That is not necessarily a bad thing. Most gig-economy workers do it part-time to earn some extra income, not as their main job. Amazon Turk is an easy way to make some extra cash at home, in the evening, or while watching the kids, It is simple, unstructured work, that can be done by anyone, anywhere.

When my daughter was in high school, she earned spending money as a turker. She would do tasks in one window, while watching a movie or Youtube videos in another. Many of the tasks are mindless drone work, so the distraction didn't slow her down much. She stopped when she figured out she could make more money writing articles on Fivver, which was higher pay for higher skills.

Efforts to ban or over regulate the gig economy will likely have the effect of pushing even more jobs overseas.

Really bad jobs

[gweihir]

I had a look at it a while back, and the only way to get to a salary you will not starve on seems to be to do the jobs so badly and fast that they just barely get accepted. Actually following the description on what you should do will get you paid much lower than that minimum wage.

How to build that Muslim database

[Anonymous Coward]

"You could be tagging faces in a crowd, but maybe something is being built for a malicious purpose or something," she said. "You don't know what you're doing, exactly, because there's no information."

I've seen a few stories how big software are saying they won't build a Muslim database. Well, here's how to do it - and no one will know the difference.

"Your assignment is to pick all the women with hijabs."

Your assignment is to match these photos with names."

"Your assignment is to find the men in their family"

Easy peasy and all for less than minimum wage.

I keep hearing this argument from the right

[rsilvergun]

But then I hear that if we raise minimum wage our entire economy will collapse from raising prices.

So, which is it? Are these inconsequential jobs meant for kids & retirees in need of fun money or the backbone of the US Economy? They can't be both.

Or do you just kinda want to be able to exploit people for your gain without feeling so bad about it? Oo-oo! It's the second one, right?

Uh, no, that's not how it works at all

[rsilvergun]

You couldn't possibly be more wrong if you tried. Same with that drek Forbes wrote. Minimum wage sets a price floor on wages. It does this to stop a race to the bottom while forcing the rich to horde a bit less of their wealth (which has been a major problem in all of human civilization: how to pry money from the 1%'s hands and get the economy moving).

The thing is, work still needs to get done and the merchant class still wants to make money. Warren Buffet said it himself (paraphrasing) that even at 90% taxes he'd still make money. Hell, America's most productive years were when the top marginal rate was 90%. So long as we have a merchant class spreading wealth around benefits all but the ruling class.

Now, we do still have an idle rich and ruling class. We just don't like to acknowledge them (and you can be they don't like being acknowledged). Go ahead. Eliminate minimum wage. Take out worker protections, Unions and all the safe guards workers fought and died for. Welcome back to the time of kings. To the robber baron era. Thanks.