microwork

This note last modified October 28, 2021

stochastic labor with small payments. One of the most famous platforms for microwork is mturk

ethics under oppressive structures
- For example, my lab pays people to do microwork, and I believe that we pay people a fair wage. At the same time, I think that microwork is inherently problematic, along with the larger systems that it is a part of. Am I a hypocrite for thinking so, while continuing to encourage microwork? Should I cease interacting with microwork platforms altogether? Our microwork platform of choice (mechanical turk) allows us to set a good wage, but what if there are aspects of mturk that I don’t like and can’t control, is my only option to step away from mturk altogether? Are the problems of microwork useless to try and solve when there are larger structural problems of capitalism?
Performance Of Paid And Volunteer Image Labeling-Gandhi
- Citizen science and crowdsourcing are powerful ways to solve problems, and organizations looking towards these approaches have two major populations they can draw on: microwork platforms like Mechanical Turk, or volunteers who are interested in the topic. Which approach is better?