Google Hired Microworkers To Train Its Controversial Project Maven AI (theverge.com)

Google hired gig economy workers to help build out a controversial AI program that the company had paired with the Pentagon to build, according to a new report from The Intercept. "The workers were hired through a crowdsourcing gig company outfit called Figure Eight, which pays as little at $1 an hour for people to perform short, seemingly mindless tasks," reports The Verge. "Whether the individuals were identifying objects in CAPTCHA-like images, or other simple tasks, the workers were helping to train Google's AI that was created as part of a Defense Department initiative known as Project Maven." From the report: Project Maven is a Pentagon project intended to use machine learning and artificial intelligence in order to differentiate people and objects in thousands of hours of drone footage. By employing these crowdsourced microworkers, Google was able to use them to teach the algorithms it was running how to distinguish between human targets and surrounding objects. According to The Intercept, these workers had no idea who their work was benefitting or what they were building.

Figure Eight, which was previously known as Crowdflower, is one of the largest platforms that employs microworkers. On its website, Figure Eight says its platform "combines human intelligence at scale with cutting-edge models to create the highest quality training data for your machine learning (ML) projects." By partnering with these microworker outfits, Google could quickly and cheaply build out its AI. "You upload your data to our platform and we provide the annotations, judgments, and labels you need to create accurate ground truth for your models," the website reads. Google decided against renewing its contract with the Defense Department last June after over 3,000 employees signed a petition in protest of the company's involvement in Project Maven. The deal is set to end in March 2019.

Comments

Also, web browsers train it.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not just microworkers doing this. Ever sign up for something online and get one of those Google captchas? Select all the squares that contain crosswalks? All the squares that contain buses?

Guess what you are doing? You are training Google's AIs. And if you want to use that site, you will bloody do it like a good citizen.

That has been appearing more and more places around the web for people who shield their identity from Google, so that Google can de-anonymize you. It is only a matter of time until it is unavoidable if you want to use the web at all.

Microworkers is an offensive term

[h33t l4x0r]

I believe they like to be called "midgets"

Re:Microworkers is an offensive term

[PopeRatzo]

.Midgets who only process JSON.

We don't use "midget" any more. Currently the acceptable term is, "wee dobby".

That's why my sincere anwsers never pass

[thesjaakspoiler]

Getting really frustrated after selecting 200 cars in a row and still not getting past the captcha. =( Next time I'll try doing the reverse....

Re:That's why my sincere anwsers never pass

[Anonymous Coward]

Getting really frustrated after selecting 200 cars in a row and still not getting past the captcha

When this happens, it's because Google doesn't want to let you in. I'm sorry I can't find the link at the moment, but they have a patent on the technique of showing you an infinite number of captchas if they decide they don't want you connecting, rather than the more expected explicit failure.

We have let those fuckers gain WAY too much control over the web. More and more, you browse the web at Google's pleasure, and if they don't like you, for example they can't easily tie your behavior to real world ID, well, you can just fuck right off.

Why all the fuss?

[Darkling-MHCN]

Sure, the gig economy, paying $1 is definitely wrong, but I don't understand what the big issue about companies like google working with the Defense Department.

The defence department takes a huge percentage of the US government budget, it's actually a very good thing if that money is spent developing non-offensive technology. Just because the defence department finances a project, doesn't mean its going to end up being used to kill people.

If it weren't for US defence dollars, the internet wouldn't even exist. There's a substantial amount hypocrisy in play for people working for google... a company that wouldn't exist without the internet protesting against taking defence department dollars.

Re:Why all the fuss?

[Arzaboa]

Why is the $1 gig economy wrong? People pay good money to sit around and play video games and watch TV otherwise doing nothing all day. Why not get paid for clicking around? In that context it seems better than the Facebook economy where people log onto Facebook, click around, and Facebook becomes one of the largest companies on the planet.

Are the google employees really hypocrites for trying to protect the medium being used by most people? Are they supposed to be beholden to the MIC because of a network? Some people say that if they don't agree with the purpose of a mission, every off-shoot is corrupt. I have faith the employees can handle both issues at once.

Amazon Turks is basically a click game where earning a certificate and spending time is the content of the game. "Build yourself" they say. Crowdflower... FlexJobs... Turks... Wanna take an exam? We'll be happy to confirm that you can follow instructions and give you a badge. Level up for the cool jobs!

Seems all the same to me. If people want to spend their time doing it, go for it. If they have money issues and can't figure out that $1/hr doesn't pay very well there is something else going on. Maybe they should try streaming themselves playing Fortnite. Either way, I think that it's better than doing nothing.

People aren't perfect, but they do try hard in their missions.

--
People are people so why should it be. You and I should get along so awfully - Depeche Mode

Re:Why all the fuss?

[gtall]

The U.S. 2019 budget: $4.407 trillion
$2.73 trillion is mandatory spending (SS, Medicare, etc.)
$363 Billion is interest on the federal debt (which is rising precipitously)
$1.203 trillion is discretionary (including military)
$892.7 billion is $616.9 billion for the DoD base budget, $69 billion for the Overseas Contingency Operations, and $21.9 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration within the Department of Energy.

The mandatory spending is increasing also precipitously due to demographics. The deficit is also rising because Congress + President passed a tax cut which will add approx $1.3 over the next 10 years to the deficit. No, the tax plan did not pay for itself. The Congressional Budget Office attests to this fact.

they should have used an AI

[sad_]

they paid $1 to a big group of people to do mundane, mindless tasks?
they should have used an AI for that!