Turkopticon has had a busy and productive year in 2023, working on several flanks to improve conditions for Amazon Mechanical Turk workers. Here are some of our highlights:
Conferences and Events
- Mozfest (March 2023): We talked about the challenges of virtual global organizing (like validation, engagement, communication, and coordination issues) and our strategies for building solidarity among Amazon Mechanical Turk workers (for example, virtual events, forums, communities, and social media campaigns).
- FaccT (ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency) (June 2023): We presented our work about the multiple challenges (i.e.: unethical tasks) that data workers on Mechanical Turk are facing and what data workers hope for a future where they work in a fair and ethical environment.
- HCOMP (Human Computation and Crowdsourcing) (November 2023): We discussed the importance of ethical challenges of crowd work, including communication barriers between data requesters and workers, accuracy metrics for evaluating data quality, and annotation task design.
Media and Outreach
We were featured in several platforms and articles to amplify our message, including:
- Tech Workers Coalition: Issue 5: “Beware the Hype: ChatGPT Didn’t Replace Human Data Annotators” (April 2023)
- Stanford Social Innovation Review: “Turk Wars: How AI Threatens the Workers Who Fuel It” (July 2023)
- Vice: “ChatGPT Can Replace the Underpaid Workers Who Train AI, Researchers Say” (August 2023)
- Computer Weekly: “AI Interview: Krystal Kauffman, Lead Organiser Turkopticon” (September 2023)
- Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: “Popping the Chatbot Hype Balloon” (September 2023)
- Computer Weekly: “US Lawmakers Write to AI Firms About Gruelling Work Conditions” (November 2023)
Podcasts
We appeared on the ”IRL by Mozilla: The Humans in the Machine (October 2023)”, discussing our Mass Rejection petition and how these unfair mass rejections affect real livelihoods. We are still actively working on this campaign.
Looking Ahead to 2024
We have big things in store for the next year, as we’re eager to continue our fight to improve conditions for Amazon Mechanical Turk workers. We are excited to join efforts with new allies, volunteers, and collaborators.
Our work in 2023 couldn’t have been possible without the help of our supporters, and we hope to keep your continued support in 2024. Thanks to all of you, we are inspired and empowered to make a real difference.