There are a legion of people out there who take surveys, undergo psychological tests, record search engine rankings and transcribe audio files for a living, taking whatever job comes up on the Mechanical Turk job list.
These people are part of Amazon’s Mechanical Turk crowdsourcing program, a place where people are paid paltry sums to complete HITs (Human Intelligence Task) and build up a feedback rep. The work is often mind numbing, and generally pays a buck or two an hour, depending on how fast you can work and how lucky you get with the queue.
Have you ever heard of the Turkers? There's about a half million of 'em online, and every day they're turking for a living.
Bassam Tariq from the New Yorker created this eye opening video that attempts to shed some light the “Wild West of the crowdsourcing work force”, featuring interviews with Turkers who share their view on this strange program.
-Via Boing Boing