I HAVE SOMETHING to confess. For the last few months I've spent countless hours moonlighting on a wide array of odd jobs. Really odd jobs. I've worked in the porn industry. I've censored online content. I've helped schoolteachers bust plagiarists. I've touted real estate. And I've burned my personal social network, all for remarkably little return. My take for all of the afterhours toil: $17.75. What I've been doing, to be specific, is participating in Amazon.com's weirdest business venture: Amazon Mechanical Turk. The big idea-and everything involving Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos has a big idea-is to outsource the gritty little mental tasks that computers can't do. IBM's Watson supercomputer can play Jeopardy'., sure. But let's see Watson tout obscure Mexican hotels.
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