
Mechanical Turk Stations for the Urban Poor - chrmaury
http://chrismaury.com/post/18320761977/mechanical-turk-stations-for-the-urban-poor
======
URSpider94
I've been sitting here for 10 minutes or so trying to find the right way to
critique not just the article, but also the tone of the discussions here. I
think the best thing that I can say is that this experiment flies in the face
of everything that pg, Steve Blank and the other leaders of Lean Startup
methodology are teaching.

If the customer here is a member of the "urban poor" (or what some commenters
have decided to call "bums"), then I'd suggest that we start with some
customer research. Do the jobless urban poor want to stand at a terminal in
the street and perform menial tasks for spare change? Would this solve real
problems for them on a daily basis? What happens when it's cold and snowy out?
How many of them know how to use a computer, or read?

Buying into this concept as a way to solve urban poverty is no different than
some Marketing VP sitting in her 50th floor corner office, thinking that she
knows what her customers want from her company's web site without ever asking
them. Before you start throwing out solutions to urban poverty, you might want
to at least talk to one or two of the people whose problems you are trying to
solve.

~~~
jessedhillon
> _... then I'd suggest that we start with some customer research. Do the
> jobless urban poor want to stand at a terminal in the street and perform
> menial tasks for spare change?_

In SV it's very popular to assume that people are poor because they don't want
to work. To the question of what poor people would want to do, the answer is
very often "who cares what they want, they're poor!" It's not this blatant --
often it's couched in statements like the ones you see here that assume that
people have chosen poverty -- but that's the basic sentiment.

> _Buying into this concept as a way to solve urban poverty is no different
> than some Marketing VP sitting in her 50th floor corner office..._

Well, this is at least consistent. If you think that people have merely chosen
to be poor, then you simply need to persuade them to make a different choice.

If one acknowledges that they don't know much about the lives of poor people,
they should do what they would with any other domain where they lack
experience -- find a domain expert. IMO, the best way to start would be to
find those members of the urban poor demographic who have the intelligence and
the motivation, but not the skills, to solve their own problems. Then, you can
help them solve _those_ problems.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_In SV it's very popular to assume that people are poor because they don't
want to work._

This is more or less true. Go look up labor force participation rates of the
poor - most poor adults don't have a job, and aren't looking for one.

~~~
Drbble
Why do you think that looking is the same as wanting?

------
pron
OMG! You guys! Aside from a few, most comments here are discussing how to
actually do this efficiently. I think this might be forgivable as I assume
many of you are quite young, but are you really suggesting exploiting poor
populations for menial work w/o social benefits, without dignity, suggesting
they walk into some booth, put in a few hours of work without even the
physical presence of co-workers and bosses that can appreciate their work?

Again, I'd like to attribute the responses to the commenters' young age, and I
trust your good intentions, but hackers, engineers and all entrepreneurs
should really learn something about work-relations, social policy and ethics.

~~~
orangecat
_are you really suggesting exploiting poor populations for menial work w/o
social benefits, without dignity, suggesting they walk into some booth, put in
a few hours of work without even the physical presence of co-workers and
bosses that can appreciate their work?_

I'll go with "yes". Doing productive work, earning money, and gaining basic
computer experience would be much better for everyone involved than
panhandling on the street.

In equally loaded terms, why would you deny poor people an opportunity to
improve their lives?

~~~
pron
Because this won't improve their lives one bit. It will turn them into drones
working for the rich without dignity or respect. Not every transaction that is
marginally beneficial to both sides is movement towards a global optimum. On
the contrary, arguments like this, talking about improvement is simple
"gradient descent". Instead of throwing the poor an insulting bone, using
their desperation to gain beneficial work w/o treating them with dignity
(benefits, appreciation), I suggest turning the bright minds of Silicon Valley
for some true disruptive thinking.

Think about this: is this suggestion going to provide the poor with true
social mobility? Is this something our society can be proud of - poor people
working for machines, as machines and getting paid by machines? Or is this
another way to maximize profit by forsaking gainful, respectful employment,
that can be somehow justified by "well, they'll be slightly better off?"

Why not suggest a mechanism by which tech companies can truly offer the poor a
hand that will last for generations and create a better society, one we can be
truly proud of, even if it's at the cost of loss of some short-term profit? An
investment in society's future, if you like. Surely this is something that
will be beneficial for everyone in the long run.

~~~
orangecat
_Because this won't improve their lives one bit._

Proof by assertion is not terribly convincing.

 _Not every transaction that is marginally beneficial to both sides is
movement towards a global optimum_

"Marginal" is more than zero bits.

 _Think about this: is this suggestion going to provide the poor with true
social mobility?_

I could easily see that happening.

 _Is this something our society can be proud of - poor people working for
machines, as machines and getting paid by machines?_

Even in those ridiculous terms (applicable to many white collar jobs), yes,
compared to common alternatives like panhandling or selling drugs.

 _Why not suggest a mechanism by which tech companies can truly offer the poor
a hand that will last for generations and create a better society_

Go for it. In the meantime, stop standing in the way of people who are trying
to improve things because you don't think they're improving them enough.

~~~
pron
I don't consider actively exploiting the poor as "not improving their lives
enough". Neither do I consider marginal benefit a positive if it comes at the
cost of exploitation. Thirdly, I don't see anyone moving from selling drugs to
doing menial mechanical turk work. Lastly - I'm not standing in anyone's way.
By all means - go and try to turn America's poor into Silicon Valley's drones
rather than invest in their future. In China's sweatshops I can at least be
fairly certain that the workers are greeted with a "hello" in the morning.
Perhaps someone is even concerned if they don't show up for work. If you want
to build hi-tech services on the backs of people who don't get even that - go
ahead. I'll be marveling at the this new turn hi-tech capitalism is taking,
while sitting in my armchair sipping tea and reading Charles Dickens.

~~~
lusr
It's frustrating debating with one who employs such rhetoric:

1\. "I don't consider actively exploiting the poor as "not improving their
lives enough"." and "Neither do I consider marginal benefit a positive if it
comes at the cost of exploitation."

You've framed the debate as "exploiting the poor" and "exploitation" yet do
not give any reason for this other than an implicit claim that sub-minimum
wage is exploitation. Let's say the minimum wage is $X/hr and this project
allows these people to earn $(X - 0.01)/hr. Is that still exploitation? Why do
you assume just because something MIGHT not be minimum wage that it's
exploitation? Minimum wage and exploitation are only slightly correlated
subjects.

All the original author is suggesting is to OFFER people jobs at a rate that
the economy identifies as a sustainable employment opportunity. Kids selling
gum at school might earn below minimum wage but it's their choice and their
life to do. Nobody is FORCING anybody to take those jobs, therefore this is
not exploitation and your dramatic and emotionally overloaded choice of words
really does not help you make your point. You need to take a moment to define
exploitation and I think in doing so you will see your argument is flawed.

2\. "I don't see anyone moving from selling drugs to doing menial mechanical
turk work" OK but that's your opinion and minimum wage laws block verifying
what the reality of the situation is.

3\. "By all means - go and try to turn America's poor into Silicon Valley's
drones rather than invest in their future"

Why do you constantly resort to such emotive, overloaded language? There's no
conspiracy here; nobody is trying to "turn" anybody into anything. What people
ARE saying is "Hey here's a way some people can make some money, maybe some
will find it acceptable" and people like you are saying "No I refuse to let
anybody explore this possibility because I'm uncomfortable with a society
where people are earning less than I think they should because of my beliefs
about what people should earn, and I believe that my beliefs override
freewill".

Notice that your argument, as far as I can tell after filtering out the
emotion, is pretty much all about your beliefs about work and society, and has
nothing to do with (a) the actual state of the economy at a given point in
time or (b) the actual people out there who might benefit from the proposed
arrangement.

~~~
pron
The reason I employ "emotional rhetoric" is because most people here have
employed unemotional or "rational" rhetoric. This isn't statistics. This isn't
an optimization problem. What I'm trying to do is to show that when you deal
with actual people, people who have so far gotten the short end of the stick
at everything, people with desires, people capable of feeling pain - you must
at least consider an "emotional" approach.

And I don't need to win an argument here - I've already won. The simple fact
is that people earning below average (or, rather, below median) in America are
worse off than almost anywhere else in the western world. And that's the
majority of the population. I was simply expressing my amazement that a
certain world outlook - which I'm not even trying to argue 'cause this is not
the place - that has traditionally been common among certain American social
groups, has taken hold of SV entrepreneurs. I find this surprising because
Northern California has had, for a long time, much sympathy for the counter-
culture movement and to ideas of social justice. I also find it interesting
that it seems like this approach is expressed here not because of some deeply
held beliefs, some ideological values, but simply because of a technical,
mathematical way of looking at the world. I was amazed and saddened at the
dehumanization expressed here.

Now, I wasn't trying to change anyone's mind on politics, but just in case
someone was expressing his views simply because he's grown accustomed to
looking at the world through equations and algorithms, I was hoping maybe my
words could jar him out of his technical sleep. Saying "Hey here's a way some
people can make some money, maybe some will find it acceptable" without
considering whether or not the idea is ethical, whether or not it is humane,
seems so... callous. Of course someone will find it acceptable - like I said
someplace else, someone will find it acceptable to sell his own organs for
money; someone will agree to go into slavery so that he'll have something to
eat - but that doesn't make it right. And I'm not even saying you should take
my definitions for right and wrong. Use your own. __But the first question you
should ask yourself is "is this right?" and not, "will this work?" __

(All of this is not to say that I cede the "rational" argument, or agree that
unregulated free-market capitalism has actual economic merit - I don't. It's
just more important for me to address the lack of ethical thinking, or the
precedence of economic thinking to it rather than argue economics)

------
hugh4life
"found that you can make about $7/ hour."

As someone who turks occasionally, you can't consistently make $7 an hour
unless you have some skill that you could probably use on the job marketplace.
$3-$4 is more like it.

~~~
Dove
I can confirm that. The article he cites to support the claim (from 2009)
indicates the author made $4 off a 350-500 word article, and $3 for a product
review. Based on my experience, those went for about $1.50 and $0.50 as of
about a year ago.

$3/hr on Turk is pretty good, and you need some education and diligence to do
it.

------
tnuc
Mechanical Turk takes up to 30 days to approve payment for any task, so
instant payment is out of the question.

Having a terminal where someone can sit for hours on end being the same place
as a cash dispenser isn't the best idea. The users would probably be better
off breaking into it. They need to be separated.

Perhaps a better solution would be to start a sweat shop full of terminals
where the sweatshop owner pays them on approved tasks, after taking a cut.

~~~
Drbble
These exist in China and India.

------
ChrisNorstrom
I like how everyone's discussing the right and wrong of it, weather it would
work or not. A true entreprenuer would ignore all that and just try it anyway.
We can talk about this till the world ends but at the end of the day, people
much smarter than us have made predictions in all sorts of industries and been
outsmarted by 2 guys in a garage who tried something crazy that should not
have worked.

I say go for it.

------
Hominem
I will do him one better. How about he opens a storefront with locked down
machines that do nothing but mechanical Turk and rents them out for 1 an hour.
Maybe wow gold farming .

Anyone have an concerns about the ethics of this? On one had 6 net is better
than 0, on the other hand it is fairly predatory.

~~~
Drbble
Why lock them down? Why not just rent computers for $1/hr, like at a cyber
cafe? That is a solved problem.

~~~
Hominem
I was thinking in terms of the hair salon model. Chairs are paid for by the
stylists but they can only do hair, not give tattoos or just use thier chair
to sit back and drink beer.

------
techiferous
I suspect panhandlers make more than $7/hour, so for them to stop panhandling
and start using a mechanical turk station would be a pay cut.

------
newhouseb
This is very similar to what Samasource (<http://samasource.org/>) does except
in a different demographic of poverty (in third world countries). The general
idea is that in many places, such as refugee camps, no one has any money and
there really aren't any jobs to act as segues to help people rise up out of
poverty, if you build computer clusters in these areas, they can do mechanical
turk style work, make a lot more money than they could otherwise and be
supervised such that quality can be more controlled than a bunch of random
people on the internet. Unfortunately they run on a different proprietary
alternative to Mechanical Turk (presumably with some tweaks to fit their
model).

------
technotony
This won't work, the wage rates on Mechanical Turk for unskilled, low
motivated users are too low. I previously worked for a microfinance bank in
the Philippines where we employed staff at a little over the minimum wage
there which was $5 per day. While we were getting ready for a new product
launch I had some staff we couldn't use yet, and seeing they all had computers
and internet connection ran a small experiment on Mechanical Turk. They
averaged $5-10 per day in income so I stopped it after a month.

There were several problems: 1\. Many of the more valuable task required you
to meet certain 'skill' levels which these staff didn't 2\. Motivation was a
huge problem as spending hours per day clicking on images with people or
editing text you don't understand was very dull 3\. We had problems with
internet bandwidth being too slow to allow running through tasks rapidly

It was a pity this experiment failed as it would have been a great way to
scale up and create income opportunities for some very destitute people.

------
neworbit
For better or worse, you're likely to get better results to your work requests
by putting these same devices in chosen offshore locations; you're arbitraging
median-skill median-lifestyle foreigners in lower cost of living areas versus
lower-quartile lifestyle and limited-skill Americans.

Globalization is not friendly to the homeless and mentally ill. This proposal
may buoy up some folks who have fallen through the cracks, but there are a
number of other social safety nets (a la worker retraining) that offer that
same sort of chance to those down on their luck but still able to turn around
from a bad situation or bad break.

If you are not able to read coherently or quickly - this doesn't necessarily
mean uneducated, it could simply be crippling dyslexia - this doesn't help
you. And if you are suffering from drug addiction or mental illness or even
poor lifestyle choices, this may be significantly less advantageous and doable
than panhandling.

------
yummyfajitas
This is a non-starter for several reasons, mostly relating to spam.

First, you can't just give people cash. They will immediately turn to
spamming, and you'll get crap data. You need to do statistics, comparing turks
to other turks, and only pay the ones who don't spam. It's highly likely you
can't do this in realtime.

Second, you need to track the identity of your turks. If worker X is known not
to be a spammer, then you want to assign work to X preferentially. Similarly,
if worker Y is a known spammer, you want to refuse him work.

Third, most poor people are not working and are not looking for work. Only 30%
or so of poor adults are in the labor force at all. Why would they decide to
start working at a mechanical turk station when they seem to have little
desire to work anyplace else?

~~~
notatoad
"most poor people are not working and are not looking for work. Only 30% or so
of poor adults are in the labor force at all. Why would they decide to start
working at a mechanical turk station when they seem to have little desire to
work anyplace else?"

just because somebody is not looking for a structured job, doesn't mean they
won't do tasks for money. think about the homeless guy who wanders around with
his shopping cart collecting discarded cans all day. the only social issue i
see with a turk kiosk is that it would essentially be a "do things in exchange
for drugs" terminal.

------
john_horton
It's been done (though instead of money, candy and instead of the urban poor,
UC Berkeley CS students):

[http://hci.berkeley.edu/cs260-fall10/images/b/ba/FinalPaper-...](http://hci.berkeley.edu/cs260-fall10/images/b/ba/FinalPaper-
HeimerlTrinh.pdf)

------
jakeonthemove
That is actually brilliant! I was thinking about something similar, how maybe
a poor country could create jobs for its citizens online (and they'd be happy
with much less than $7/hour). But this is actually a great idea for poor
people in any country...

~~~
DanBC
I'm surprised that there isn't better translation to "minority" languages.

------
dools
I suggest you find out how much someone makes pan-handling per hour. You may
be shocked ...

------
wtvanhest
This would be a great kickstarter project. You may want to modify it though so
the station just prints a check or some other instrument other than cash or
you will end up with a lot of broken Mechanical Turk Stations.

~~~
chrmaury
Yea, broken machines or people getting mugged right after cashing out are both
concerns. But the people who would benefit most from something like this would
be least likely to have a bank account.

~~~
dpres
Tons of businesses cash checks without a bank account. Another concern is
kiosk hacking: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSu8z3vrfcY>

~~~
Professa
The kiosks actually coming up missing would be a bigger concern than hacking.

------
prawn
Half-baked adaptations:

Combine with a Vegas pokie/slot machine. Complete menial hits in exchange for
a few more cents to play.

Or combine with vending machines. You want that can of Coke? Pay by
categorising 30-40 photos quickly.

------
sturadnidge
Be good if Amazon themselves got behind something like this, by providing the
banking and payment infrastructure. They already issue credit cards, they
could instead issue debit cards and directly pay into those. Would eliminate
the need for a cash machine on the terminal, although the absurd ATM fees in
the US might make it less viable I guess. I assume there are no charges for
using debit cards for small transactions in the US (I live in the UK)?

------
deepkut
This sounds like the type of idea that Thiel would be into. I applaud your
creativity and these discussions regarding minimum wage are surprisingly
pertinent.

------
Alex3917
What if the person doing the Turking was submitting crap data? It seems like
you'd have to wait at least a couple days in order for the data to be
validated.

~~~
marshallp
Other platforms built on turk, such as crowdflower, have systems in place to
assess accuracy. Another turk worker checks the quality of the work, or 3
workers do a task, and the best, as judged by a different set of workers, is
given a bonus.

------
kristianp
I can see one advantage to this, is that the poor don't have any computer
skills, and this may give them basic familiarity with using websites. Although
I imagine there would have to be a trainer present at all times to help when
they get stuck.

A more beneficial concept for the poor is microlending, helping the poor in
third-world countries start their own businesses.

------
Duff
The problem with a "solution" like this is same as the problem that the minium
wage presents: it is insufficient to live on, and less than the value of
social services benefits.

If you want to magically improve the plight of the poor, make cheap housing
available in urban areas without a qualification process (ie. Section 8,
public housing)

~~~
Drbble
Wall Street tried that, by destroying the real estate market.

~~~
Duff
Wall St gave people with no money the ability to buy stuff that they cannot
afford. I'm talking about a $300/mo apartment.

------
prawn
What about paywithatweet repurposed so you pay for digital goods with some
Turking? Categorise 50 images and get your favourite local band's latest MP3.
$1.90 to the band, $0.10 to the intermediary as their cut.

~~~
Drbble
Pretty sure people who work for $1/hr don't want to spend it on mp3s.

~~~
prawn
I'm not talking about the less fortunate here, but adapting the Turk idea to
something else half-baked.

I could categorise 50 images in 2-3 minutes. It'd take me 1-2 minutes to get
out my wallet, get the right credit card and enter the info if I were to pay
manually.

I ran the idea past two employees (neither homeless...) who both seemed to
think they'd consider a quick spot of Turking in exchange for a digital good.

------
tpolm
I believe that captchabot and services alike have already successfully
implemented this idea.

------
rmc
_For all the success that micro-lending has had in India and other countries,
we haven’t really seen those benefits in American Urban areas._

I thought the USA had "micro-lending", but they were called "payday loans"?

~~~
zdw
Payday lenders have a significantly higher interest rate - on the order of
500-2000% of the principle per year. The purpose of it is to put the screws on
people who aren't able to get loans elsewhere.

Micro lending has more of a humanitarian goal - most organizations tend to
lend at reasonable rates (3-15%/year).

~~~
Drbble
Those organizations lend to local "bankers" who lend out at higher rates to
customers.

Payday shops charge reasonable fees per loan, the same fees that all vendors
and governments charge for you hanging on to money they want from you. The
problem is that payday loan customers get trapped into taking excessive
numbers of loans, multiplying fees.

~~~
sireat
With all due respect, payday shops do not charge "reasonable" fees, unless
your definition of reasonable includes amounts higher than 100% APR.

It should be noted that ordinarily vendors and governments do have reasonable
late fees(certainly much less than one from payday shop). I do not remember
paying more than 24% when I run late on some Accounts Payable when I run my
shop at the turn of the millennium. Maybe it is now normal for vendors to ask
for 100+% when a 30day net invoice runs late, who knows?

It is when a vendor is about to deny service completely(ie pay $50 to
reconnect electric utility), then a payday loan becomes a relatively
reasonable option.

There are a multitude of factors which go behind the rates(I am bundling in
all of the fees into catch all rate) that payday shops charge:

* Likelihood of borrower to repay * Ability of borrower to do simple math * Human psychology (goes with the simple math to calculate rate from fees) * Demand from borrowers

Overall, payday shops charge more than regular lending institutions because
they should(higher risk and some expenses). They also raise their effective
rate beyond their "should rate" because they can.

Their customers are not comparison shopping between 240% APR and 300% APR. I
would argue that it should be made easier for their customers to do so, but
that is another discussion.

------
shingen
What this article is effectively advocating, but can't or won't say outright,
is that America needs the ability to pay people less than the minimum wage.

Someone working all day at mechanical turk, is likely to fall below the
federal minimum wage rate in terms of what they're pulling down per hour. Is
it ok for companies to utilize mass scale labor at what becomes in reality a
sub minimum wage rate? Particularly if mechanical turk stations were to become
wide spread.

Obviously mechanical turk is a per unit pay system, not a job with an hourly
pay rate. However, if you're doing it full time, I call bullshit on that
difference. If you had 100,000 people working on mechanical turk 40 hours per
week, making $6 per hour, those are very much jobs paying sub minimum wage.

It would be no different than if a thousand companies banded together to
source labor below minimum wage by paying per task, and sharing that labor
around rather than employing each laborer in a "job" (eg in a metro area with
high population density). Those companies would be paying for net full time
labor, while evading the minimum wage responsibility.

One solution to this legal boundary, would be to require that mechanical turk
style tasks pay at least equivalent to minimum wage based on the time they
take. I expect in any large scale adoption of mechanical turk, this issue will
jump to the forefront.

~~~
gojomo
Minimum wage laws destroy jobs and reduce overall welfare; they should be
repealed rather than extended to novel business arrangements.

Minimum wages are implemented with noble motivations, but are based on a
broken mental model, where the edict alone can lift everyone who would have
made less up to the new statutory minimum.

In fact, many of the people who would be employed at lower wages aren't (yet)
productive enough to justify a higher wage. An employer will pick a mix other
adaptations rather than simply 'the same number of employees at a higher cost'
once the wage floor is enforced. (These might include shorter opening hours,
more automation, a few higher-paid workers replacing many lower-paid workers,
longer waiting lines, less customer service, less attention to
cleaning/inventory, and outsourcing work to other lower-cost entities or
countries.)

These dynamic adaptations leave a few people bumped up to the higher minimum,
but more left completely unemployed, idle and dependent on other social
assistance. They're not building work habits or a work history that would put
them on the path to much higher wages.

Even if we wanted, as a society, to ensure a certain minimum wage, why would
we make the responsibility for paying it fall solely on those particular
companies and industries that can best utilize inexperienced and low-skilled
labor? Their manufacturing and simple services fill a important role, in the
goods they provide and the meaningful productive work they offer those without
other skills. By making them and them alone face this costly extra non-market
constraint on hiring, they become disadvantaged and shrink, relative to other
sectors and overseas competitors.

It would be like deciding "every low-income family requires a computer", but
rather than buying it out of common public funds, making it a legal
requirement for just the domestic computer industry to provide free computers,
out of their own revenues. Would that properly value the exact thing you want
to happen – more computer production – or impair it by making it less
profitable than other uses of the same talent/capital? The same goes with
employment opportunities for the low-skilled. The minimum wage has been
thinning such domestic opportunities out, for decades, rather than expanding
them. Intended to reduce income disparities, it's increasing them.

~~~
gregholmberg
_Minimum wage laws destroy jobs and reduce overall welfare; they should be
repealed rather than extended to novel business arrangements._

This is in fact their purpose. Minimum wage laws destroy low-paying jobs by
making them illegal, preventing the least competitive members of our society
from having the hours and days of their lives "mined" by an employer for
negligible compensation.

That having these laws "reduces welfare" is, I believe, a conclusion not
supported by fact.

A living example can be found in urban Brazil. By failing to outlaw and
enforce certain minima (building codes, wages), large Brazilian cities have
created vast marginal neighborhoods that no one wants to live in.

Based just on the example of _favelas_ alone, I would argue that having laws
to guarantee minimum wages is one thing a government can do immediately to
protect the weaker members of a society.

I think you have not addressed another important duty of governments: to
provide a reasonably rigorous educational launchpad so that the less fortunate
need not always remain so.

~~~
yummyfajitas
I've never been to Brazil, so I won't comment. But I live in India, so I'll
discuss the situation here. The GDP/capita here is $3k/year, adjusted for
purchasing power.

Pass all the laws you want, there is simply not enough wealth (i.e., not
enough material and skilled labor) for everyone to live in a house that meets
building codes. No matter what you redistribute (note: India has very low
inequality [1]) or demand from people, you can't squeeze water from a stone.

[1] Nominal inequality is low, but inequality of living conditions is high.
This is the exact opposite of the US, where the rich have a PS3 and an XBox,
and the poor are stuck with only a PS2.

~~~
pedrolll
Over 70% of indians live in rural areas. Many of these people live completely
outside of the monetary economy. Counting these people in the GDP statistics
skews the whole thing. Yet many of these people live just fine by farming, but
do not need to use money, or use very little of it. To me it seems that when
making GDP statistics, it would be wise to count in only people in urban
areas, participating in the labor market. Of course this would look quite bad
from the point of view of neoliberalist economists.

------
wavephorm
This resonates a lot with Henry Ford's innovations of conveyor belt assembly
lines. Ford found out how to humans into an early form of robot, and once
technology caught up these jobs inevitably were replaced with actual robots.
Even if this Turk Station idea works, how long will it be until AI replaces
any need for Mechanical Turk? About 10 years I'm guessing?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_line#Ford_Motor_Compan...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_line#Ford_Motor_Company_.281908-1915.29)

~~~
orbitingpluto
Henry Ford also thought it was important that his workers be able to purchase
the product that they are making in order to drive the economy. Turking isn't
even going to feed you.

------
ajays
This is a great idea. It would really work if it supplements the welfare
checks; it would get people into the mindset of working. Let me explain.

Right now, if you're a bum, you make a decent amount of money panhandling +
scamming the government ("disability", etc.); let's call this "freeloading".
The problem is: the amount of money you can make freeloading is close to
minimum wage (if you include everything). So there isn't much incentive to
take up work; freeloading may not pay as much, but you get total freedom, no
schedules, no boss, etc. After some time, you just become so used to that
lifestyle that it's impossible to come back into the working mainstream.

A system like this can be a great way for people to, on their own schedule,
supplement their freeloading income. Over time, they'd get used to the concept
of effort and reward, and maybe consider taking up real work?

On another note: I think minimum wage should be much higher; say, $20/hour.
This may not sound like a good idea, but think about it: it should be high
enough that a freeloader has serious economic incentive to get off his ass and
look for work! Another way to look at it is: I would much rather pay more for
something, and have that extra money directly go to a worker's pocket; than
route the money circuitously through government taxes, bureaucracy, non-
profits, etc. to that person on welfare.

Edit: the above are just ideas. If you disagree with them, say something
instead of hitting the down arrow.

~~~
rmc
_scamming the government ("disability", etc.)_

You know that there are loads of actual poor disabled people? Not everyone on
social welfare is a leech on society. Have some compassion.

~~~
waqf
GP didn't assert there weren't poor disabled people; merely that if you are a
[sc. non-disabled] poor person it is possible to scam the government into
paying you disability benefits.

