The platform's name is derived from "The Turk," an 18th-century chess-playing automaton commissioned by Austrian Empress Maria Theresa. While the machine appeared to play chess autonomously, it actually concealed a human chess master inside who directed its moves. Amazon adopted this name in 2005 to reflect a similar concept: software that uses human intelligence to perform "automated" tasks. How the Marketplace Functions
For decades, the Turk toured Europe, defeating Napoleon Bonaparte (who played recklessly and lost in nineteen moves), Benjamin Franklin (who played carefully and still lost), and crowds of bewildered skeptics. The question haunted every parlor and salon: How does it work?
: Every completed batch would receive a "Consensus Score," letting you see at a glance how much agreement exists across your global distributed workforce .
The platform was launched in 2005 by Amazon as a way to provide a flexible and scalable workforce for tasks that require human intelligence. The name "Mechanical Turk" comes from a 19th-century chess-playing machine that was actually a clever hoax, where a human hid inside the machine to play chess. Similarly, Amazon's Mechanical Turk uses human workers to complete tasks that are difficult for computers to perform. mechanical turk
In 1836, a boy named Paul watched the Turk in Philadelphia. He was nine years old, the son of a poor watchmaker. While others saw magic, Paul saw a puzzle. He heard the faint scrape inside the cabinet—not gears, but something softer. He noticed that after every match, Kempelen’s assistant, a small, silent man named Johann, would always need to “wind the mainspring” in a locked back room. Paul watched Johann’s hands. They were not the hands of a mechanic. They were the hands of a chess master—callused from study, nimble from years of silent calculation.
: If the AQC detects exceptionally high agreement and speed, it could trigger a small, pre-set bonus to the most accurate Workers automatically, increasing retention of high-quality talent.
To enhance Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk), a powerful new feature would be . The platform's name is derived from "The Turk,"
: If one Worker consistently provides answers that differ from the majority, the system would automatically "flag" them for manual review or prevent them from taking future HITs in that batch.
Requesters post micro-tasks, known as HITs, which typically take only a few minutes to complete.
Currently, Requesters often have to manually review or use basic scripts to compare multiple Worker responses for the same task. The AQC feature would solve this by providing a built-in, intelligent logic layer that automatically validates work based on majority rules or statistical outliers. Feature: Automated Quality Consensus (AQC) How the Marketplace Functions For decades, the Turk
Paul returned the next night with a candle and a stolen key. He slipped into the back room after the exhibition. The Turk sat in the corner, its painted eyes staring into nothing. Paul opened the hidden latch on the cabinet’s rear panel—not the one Kempelen showed the crowd, but another, smaller one, painted to look like wood grain.
Paul understood. The secret of the Turk was not gears or springs or magic. It was a man—a living, breathing, thinking man—hiding in the dark, moving the arm by a system of levers, seeing the board through a mirror, playing chess in silence for hours, for years, for a lifetime. Johann was not an assistant. Johann was the Turk.
The machine’s creator, Wolfgang von Kempelen, had designed it to humiliate the court magician. But instead, it enchanted an empire. Kempelen would open the cabinet’s doors, revealing a breathtakingly intricate clockwork of cogs, gears, springs, and brass wheels. He would lift the Turk’s robes, showing empty space. Then, he would light a candle, place it inside the cabinet, close the doors, and challenge anyone to play.
Amazon charges Requesters a fee, which is often 20% or 40% of the worker's compensation, depending on the task's complexity or the number of workers assigned. Common Uses and Applications