Summary: Web 2.0 crowdwork platforms source the human intelligence needed to train Big Tech’s algorithms. In this system, tech giants set the rules of the game, with firm control over both compensation and working conditions. While some workers appreciate the flexibility to set their hours, many are unhappy with poor pay, exploitive requestors, and unresponsive management. Synesis One was founded to build a fairer and more open Web 3.0 ecosystem that empowers digital workers, offers better compensation, and allows workers to build digital wealth.

Clickworkers

Every day, millions of digital workers around the world spend their time classifying, sorting, tagging, and annotating data on crowdwork platforms like Amazon Mechanical Turk, Clickworker, Appen, Scale.ai, Snorkel, and many others.¹ These platforms tote the flexibility of their workers to choose what they work on and when, but this freedom often obscures the control platform companies exercise over the terms of service and compensation.

‘Clickwork’, as it has come to be called, first emerged in the early 2000s, as tech giants like Amazon, Google, Apple, and Facebook discovered that humans can do many microtasks more cheaply or efficiently than computers. The demand for this sort of work has increased steadily with the rise of artificial intelligence, as it became clear AI could not reliably discern nuances in photos and texts, and humans were required to fill the gap. The pandemic further normalized clickwork, as many businesses closed, and millions of workers scrambled to find work from home options. Some estimate the number of clickworkers globally at nearly 20 million.²

Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT) was the first crowdwork platform. Founded in 2005 to crowdsource tasks from within the Amazon.com ecosystem, Amazon soon opened the platform to other businesses, who began uploading tasks that required human intelligence for rating, classifying, or tagging. By 2007, there were more than 100,000 workers in over 100 countries. By 2011, there were 500,000 workers in 190 countries. Another leading crowdwork platform is Clickworker.com, which formally launched in 2010. The company counted 150,000 clickworkers by 2011, 500,000 by 2013, one million by 2017, and two million by 2020. Today there are reportedly 3.6 million clickworkers in 70 countries, thanks to their iOS and Android Apps.³

Amazon Mechanical Turk is named after the Mechanical Turk, a clockwork automaton built in the 18thcentury, which appeared to play a strong game of chess — but in fact concealed a human chess player secretly moving the magnetized pieces under the board. The workers who train Amazon’s algorithms are similarly hidden from view, invisibly tagging and annotating data for less than minimum wage and with little collective bargaining power.

The Synesis One DAO, once launched, aims to change the rules of the game for clickworkers through a Web 3.0 ecosystem that empowers workers, offers better and more dependable compensation, and opens the door to building real digital wealth.

Demographics

Who engages in clickwork and why has been the subject of numerous government and academic studies in recent years.⁴ The most comprehensive study was conducted by the International Labor Organization under the auspices of the United Nations in 2018.⁵ The report’s authors conducted surveys in 2015, with workers in 51 countries, and in 2017, with workers in 75 countries. The study focused on five platforms, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Crowdflower (acquired by Appen in 2019), Clickworker.com, Prolific, and Microworkers. The surveys included workers in Brazil, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, and the United States, as well as Western and Eastern Europe.

The authors discovered that while crowdwork draws heavily from the low wage global south, many workers are based in the United States and Europe. Amazon Mechanical Turk, for example, sourced 75% of its workers in the United States and 18% from India in 2015, but this percentage fell to 47% from the U.S. and 52% from India by 2017. The authors found that clickworker.com respondents reside in 22 different countries, but the majority (63%) are based in Europe, with 39% in Germany, 10% in the United Kingdom, 9% in Italy, and 5% in Spain. Clickworker.com sources 16% of its workers from the U.S. and only 4% from India. Similarly, Prolific draws most of its workers from the United Kingdom (47%) and the United States (39%). Nearly a third of Microworkers hailed from the United States (30%), with only 10% based in India and the remainder in 52 other countries. Crowdflower (now Appen) had a similarly diverse work force, with respondents from more than 50 countries, but led by the United States.

While crowdworkers hail from many countries, they tend to be younger on average than the general population, but with more male workers in developing countries, and a more equal gender balance in North America and Europe. According to the ILO researchers, the average age of crowdworkers was 33.2 years, with the majority between 25 to 40 years. Only 10 per cent of respondents were above 50 years of age. In terms of gender distribution, there were roughly the same number of men (52%) and women (48%) on AMT for the United States, but many more men (76%) than women (24%) in India.⁶ Similarly, there were more men than women performing microtasks on Crowdflower and Microworkers. The researchers found that in developing countries, only one out of five workers were female.

One of the most surprising findings of the study is the number of clickworkers with university degrees. The researchers found that only 18% have a high school diploma or less, 25% have a technical certificate or some university education, 37% have a bachelor’s degree and 20% have a post-graduate degree.⁷ Moreover, they found that many crowdworkers are young students currently pursuing a university education. A recent study conducted by UK thinktank Autonomy found similarly high levels of education among UK crowdworkers, with 60% holding at least a tertiary level qualification and over 20% a postgraduate degree.⁸

Remuneration

Remuneration on crowdwork platforms is quite low. Like Uber, crowdwork platforms classify their workers as ‘independent contractors’ to sidestep any legal or social responsibility for them, including paying them the local minimum wage. According to the ILO surveys, workers in Northern America tended to earn $4.70 / hour, about $3.00 / hour in Europe, and $2.22 in Asia and the Pacific.⁹ One academic study of Amazon Mechanical Turk reported that when unpaid time (searching for tasks, rejected HITs, etc.) is accounted for, the typical Mturker earned closer to $2.00 / hour, with only 4% earning minimum wage.¹⁰ The Federal minimum wage in the U.S., last raised in 2009, is $7.25. In Asia, the minimum wage is $5.26 in Taiwan, $8.99 in South Korea and $7.52 in Japan. In Western Europe, the minimum wage is much higher, ranging from $10.68 in Germany, $11.37 in the UK, and $11.46 in France.¹¹

If crowdwork platforms pay less than minimum wage, then why do so many educated workers seek them out? The ILO researchers found that 32% of respondents identified “complement pay from other jobs” as the main reason. About 10% could not find other employment, while 22% said they “prefer to work from home” as the main reason. Health problems were another common reason — either their own health or that of a dependent. 8% of surveyed individuals said that they “can only work from home”, either for health reasons or because they need to care for a child or parent. About 15% said they engaged in clickwork because they enjoyed it.¹² Amusingly, a minority of crowdworkers admitted to doing clickwork while on the clock for their primary employer. In general, clickwork appeals to housewives who need to care for dependents and to students who need extra income. For a growing minority of digital workers, however, clickwork has become their primary source of income, particularly for those in rural areas of the United States or for those in developing countries like India or the Philippines.

A Day in the Life of a MTurker

To learn more about the world of crowdwork, I decided to become an MTurker myself. When you first join Amazon Mechanical Turk, you must create a worker account (‘the make money’ option), and provide email, address, phone number, social security number, and other info. You must sign a participation agreement, which basically says you are an independent contractor (like an Uber driver), and you must file your own taxes. Once you’re approved, you can specify how you want to get paid: either into your bank account or via an Amazon reward card, which you can redeem for merchandise.

Once you get through these hurdles, you go to your dashboard where you can sort the available tasks (known as “Human Intelligence Tasks — HITs”) by pay, but there’s usually no indication of how long the task will take to complete. Many tasks pay just pennies. There is a filter function that allows you to filter out low paying tasks. Also, some enterprising Mturkers have created browser extensions (see Turkopticon or Turkdroid) to help users find the best paying tasks and those that require the least time. Finally, Mturkers have created Reddit groups to review requestor tasks, to help workers avoid poor paying or exploitive requestors. The Reddit groups offer Mturkers a community, information sharing, tips on how to maximize their gains, and the ability to organize (somewhat) to improve their situation.

While Mturkers earn less than minimum wage, a small contingent of expert Mturkers with thousands of completed tasks and high acceptance rates can earn more than minimum wage, thanks to the coveted ‘master qualification,’ which gives them access to better paying tasks. How one achieves master qualification is unclear. The threshold seems to be 99% acceptance rate and at least a thousand HITs. Beyond that, it appears to be completely arbitrary. Sometimes workers with just a few thousand completed HITs get it, while those with over 100,000 HITS don’t.¹³

AMT constantly monitors its workers and can ban them without warning or explanation. To combat BOTs and user scripts, AMT instituted ‘attention checks’ to make sure you read everything before answering questions. If you fail, it will reject your ‘HIT’. It’s not always clear why your HIT is rejected either, as many of the reviewers point out on indeed.com.¹⁴ When your HIT is rejected, not only do you lose your time, but it also lowers your acceptance score. There is no recourse. It quickly becomes clear that the best way to make money is to screen out low paying tasks, arm yourself with the latest browser extensions, and complete as many HITS as humanly possible, without running afoul of the surveillance software’s attention checks. A day of this algorithmic managed hell was enough.

Worker Views of AMT

Unsurprisingly, Amazon Mechanical Turk fares poorly on job review sites like Trustpilot, where 68% of the reviewers rated it ‘bad’ (the lowest possible rank). The main criticism is the low pay. As one reviewer put it “You will get paid way less than minimum wage. Don’t waste your time.”¹⁵ Some overseas workers also report difficulties getting paid at all. As one wrote, “Avoid like plague if you are a non-US worker. You cannot do anything with the earned money, you can’t withdrawal to a non-U.S. account, as they don’t allow you to use a third-party service to get your money. You’ll be forced [to use gift cards] to spend it on Amazon.com.” On the other hand, several Indian workers report (writing on Quora) that they can get money using Hyperwallet.com, and transfer earnings to their Indian bank accounts.¹⁶

Mturkers also complain about exploitation by unscrupulous requestors, who reject the HITs but keep the data — without paying for it. Mturkers also grumble about requestors who take the full 30 days to accept or reject their HITs, the long waits to get approved to be an Mturker (apparently common for non-US citizens), and the lack of transparency about how long tasks take or how to achieve the illusive master qualification. Finally, workers are irate about the lack of response from Amazon to their complaints. The Reddit forums are full of posts by workers whose accounts have been locked or banned for no apparent reason — with no explanation and no recourse.¹⁷

Despite the low pay, unscrupulous requestors, and unresponsive management, some workers — particularly in India or Indonesia or other low-wage countries — see Amazon Mechanical Turk as a real lifesaver. One Indian worker, who has been using AMT for three years, posted a screen shot of his dashboard, with over $4,000 in earnings and bonuses. By way of comparison, the minimum wage for unskilled labor in India is 178 rupees, or about $2.23 / day. The median monthly salary (in 2022) is $377.¹⁸

Crowdwork Critics

Worker complaints are echoed by journalists, researchers, and labor activists. University of Sussex researcher Phil Jones regards crowdwork platforms as a new form exploitation, with “onerous microwork increasingly performed in the slums, prisons, and refugee camps of sclerotic post-crisis capitalism.”¹⁹ Alana Semuels, writing in the Atlantic, argues that crowdwork platforms are “enabling a new type of terrible work, in which Americans complete mind-numbing tasks for hours on end, sometimes earning just pennies per job.”²⁰ They do so, she argues, because many workers in places like Appalachia have few other options.

With platform work, power rests with the tech giants, as workers have little recourse to organize or strike for better conditions, or indeed to be heard at all by distant and uncaring managers. In 2010, New York University Professor and Mturker researcher Panos Ipeirotis proposed some basic changes to AMT to make it fairer and more transparent.²¹ He argued that AMT should provide information like speed of payment, rejection rate, number of worker complaints, and number of tasks complete in the marketplace, so workers can at least make more informed decisions on HITs. Unfortunately, his suggestions have gone unheeded. Gizmodo reports that a common complaint among Mturkers is that requestors can reject a job after its mostly completed, pay nothing, and still have use of the data. Workers have no right of appeal.²² In 2017, Wired magazine reported on how a group of Stanford professors, collaborating with Indian workers on AMT, tried to improve conditions by creating a rival microtasking platform. Rather than listen to worker concerns, Amazon Mechanical Turk’s management responded by banning all the accounts the group used to validate Mturkers.²³

While crowdwork platforms take a cavalier approach to national labor laws, they do allow workers to work where they want, when they want, and on what they want. This flexibility is a major advantage for thousands of workers who need a side hustle, or who are unable to commute to workplaces. French side hustle website Welcome to the Jungle points out that micro-tasking on Amazon Mechanical Turk or Clickworker can be a real opportunity for those in underdeveloped countries, who might otherwise be far removed from the global economy. At the same time, the author notes “the working reality of these millions of crowdworkers makes for mixed experiences: For some, it is a tool for emancipation and a real opportunity, while for others it can be demeaning work and a form of alienation.”²⁴

Changing the Game

The internet as we know it today (Web 2.0) is dominated by Big Tech companies, which vacuum up our personal data in exchange for ‘free’ services. They sell this data to advertisers to drive the attention economy and use it to train up their algorithms — without paying those who generate the data. With Web 3.0, however, we’re moving to a more decentralized internet built on blockchains. Web 3.0 empowers users through ownership. You will own and control your data, your content, and your digital assets — with much greater security and privacy. Web 3.0 will shift power away from the tech giants and give it back to users and the community. Synesis One is helping to build this future today with our train2earn App on the Solana blockchain.

Embracing the DAO

In the existing ecosystem, the owners of crowdwork platforms make all the decisions, set the terms of work and compensation, and capture the lion’s share of the value. Work is offered on a take it or leave it basis. Crowdworkers have little control over working conditions or compensation. Synesis One takes a different approach. We’re launching a Distributed Autonomous Organization (DAO) that rewards our community members, empowers digital workers, and ensures the benefits of AI are available to all — not just Big Tech or Big Brother. A DAO is an entity like a corporation, but without a central decision-making authority. Users will own the Synesis One DAO (once launched) and manage decision making. Our DAO embodies these key values:

· Decentralization: We believe that decisions made by our entire community, rather than a handful of people, will lead to better outcomes.

· Aligned Incentives: We believe that those who create value should be rewarded for their contributions — including yield generating digital assets.

· Community: We are owned and managed by our users for the benefit of all.

With Synesis One, holding SNS tokens makes you an owner, with voting rights in the DAO. Being an owner (not just a worker) allows you to help shape the future of Synesis One and artificial intelligence. Ownership brings power. We believe that Synesis DAO will allow our community members to earn income with a better work / life balance and fairer compensation for their labor. This is the kind of world we all deserve. We intend to fight for it.

Aligned Incentives

We believe that those who train AI algorithms should be paid promptly, earn enough to make it worthwhile, and keep more of what they make. They should also be able to participate even if they are among the estimated 1.7 billion people who do not have access to banking services. Synesis One achieves these goals with our SNS tokens, a Solana blockchain native cryptocurrency.

On existing Web 2.0 crowdwork platforms, users can only participate by connecting their bank account. Getting verified can be an onerous and time-consuming process for workers outside the US or EU, with waits of several days or even weeks being common. Many non-US or EU workers have found that it’s easier to have an EU or US based relative or friend create the account for them and forward the earnings. Once a new worker is approved, they must complete enough tasks to reach a threshold (typically $10) before they can cash out their earnings. For Amazon Mechanical Turk, non-US workers can’t receive funds directly into their local banks, but they can exchange their gift card balances into bitcoins using third-party platforms like purse.io, and then convert the bitcoins into local fiat through various exchange platforms. It’s a cumbersome process.

In contrast, registering for Synesis One is easy. Just connect your Solana compatible wallet and you’re good to go! No bank account or verification required. Users are paid immediately in SNS tokens for validated tasks, without currency thresholds or wait periods. To convert SNS tokens into local fiat, simply connect your wallet to an exchange like Huobi Global (no bank account required), swap SNS tokens for USDT (for example), and then use the P2P marketplace to trade USDT for Dollars, Euros, Rupees, Pesos, or other fiat currencies. There are dozens of ways to receive the money, from bank transfer to Revolut to Transferwise to various country-specific solutions (like Paytm in India).

Not only is it easier to get started with Synesis One, but we pay better than existing crowdworking platforms too. Synesis One is currently focused on training a conversational AI engine called Mind Expression, which was created by our sister company Mind AI. Companies pay Mind AI to power their chatbots with better conversational AI than existing solutions like Google’s Dialogueflow or Microsoft’s Azure Bot service. Part of these revenues are paid to our token holders for their work in creating the ontologies needed to expand the AI’s ‘mental map’ for a particular domain (like ecommerce, health care, etc).

Here’s how it works. New projects show up in Workspace (our train2earn App), just like a human intelligence task in Amazon Mechanical Turk. Builders can choose what to work on and then use their creativity to come up with all possible ways to express various queries within a particular topic, which validators then approve or reject. Contributors are rewarded with SNS tokens for their work. The SNS tokens can then be exchanged for fiat or invested in Kanon NFTs. Users with a good command of English and a knack for what we call ‘data yield farming’ (basically, submitting ontologies, like submitting HITS with Amazon Mechanical Turk) should be able to earn a better return than is offered on existing crowdwork platforms.

Unlike existing Web 2.0 crowdwork platforms, Synesis One also offers you a way to build long term wealth, by putting some of your earnings toward acquiring Kanon NFTs — which are yield generating assets. We have turned 10,000 of the most frequently used words into NFTs that generate claimable passive income for the holders. It’s like holding a bearer bond that never expires. How much can you earn? That depends on how many, and which words are in your collection. Every time one of your Kanon NFT words is used by mind expression, you receive a small payment in SNS tokens. As more companies adopt the Mind Expression engine, the potential earnings from holding Kanon NFTs will rise. And there will be more collections in the future as we add new words and languages. At Synesis, we want our community members to be able to build long term wealth for themselves and their families.

Conclusion

The problem with the highly centralized and corporate controlled AI ecosystem we have today (powered by crowdwork platforms) is that it threatens both free markets and democratic governance. Centralized systems put too much power in too few hands, with too little transparency or oversight. Similarly, all the rewards in the existing Web 2.0 ecosystem are concentrated in the hands of a few billionaires, rather than more widely shared with those creating the value.

Synesis One is designed to address these challenges and create a fairer and more open AI ecosystem, one that puts power in the hands of the community and rewards contributors for the value they create. Decentralized systems like the Synesis One DAO will turn workers into owners, return power to communities, and create a better future for us all.

[1] Durward Blohm and Leimesiter, Crowdwork, 2016.

[2] Mary Gray and Siddharth Suri, Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass, 2019.

[3] Figures from Clickworker.com website

[4] See for example, Phil Jones James Muldoon, Rise and Grind: Microwork and Hustle Culture in the UK, 2022.

[5] ILO, Digital Labor Platforms and the Future of Work: Towards Decent Work in the Online World, 2018.

[6] Ibid., p.35

[7] Ibid., p.36

[8] Rise and Grind, op. cit. p.19

[9] ILO report, op. cit., p. 49

[10] Kotaro Hara et al, A Data-Driven Analysis of Workers’ Earnings on Amazon Mechanical Turk, 2018.

[11] See World Minimum Wage by Country, 2022.

[12] ILO report, op. cit., p 37–41.