Amazon ’s grocery stores ditch their“Just take the air Out ” technologyon Tuesday , though it turned out the automate check-out procedure system include 1,000 reviewers in India . However , this is hardly the only example of times when automation breakthrough were unfeignedly powered by human workers in hiding – a phenomenon known as “ The Mechanical Turk . ”
The Mechanical Turk concern to a fraudulent chess - playing machine from the year 1770 . It appeared to be an automated auto that could playact a free-enterprise chess match against any human . The machine was tout around the world for decades , awesome crowds as the first - ever automaton . However , it was by and by revealed to be an luxuriant hoax , where a master chess game instrumentalist was blot out inside the machine .
This idea came up again in the early 1800s in England but in a different direction . As Brian Merchant distinguish in his bookBlood in the Machine , clothing makers in England were put back by new “ automated ” machine their employers introduce . However , while these machines did n’t require a skilled journeyman , they still needed small children ( orphan ) to operate them . So they were n’t quite automated , though they created a loud , bad product that took the jobs of skilled clothing makers , who became acknowledge as “ Luddites . ”

A young boy in England operating a thread-making machine in 1909.Photo: Topical Press Agency/Hulton Archive (Getty Images)
That brings us to today . In the earned run average of unreal intelligence , there are some incredible example of automation . However , there are also unnumbered more automation hoaxes that are popping up . technical school companies are racing to appear on the cutting sharpness , implementing AI engineering before they ’re in reality ready . That means many company are propping up phony AI model with human workers .
Here are 10 modern examples of Mechanical Turks , when automation is really just humans in camouflage .
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A drawing of the Mechanical Turk, which allowed a small, expert chess player to climb inside and play the game, posing as a machine.Photo: Bildagentur-online/Universal Images Group (Getty Images)















