Amazon Patents Humans Assisting Computers 236
theodp writes "Amazon's latest patent, the Hybrid Machine/Human Computing Arrangement, reads like scary sci-fi, with claims covering the use of humans 'of college educated, at most high school educated, at most elementary school educated, and not formally educated' to perform subtasks dispatched by a computer. From the patent: 'For examples, the task on hand requires French speaking humans, and Task Server has requested that each subtask be performed by at least 10 humans with a past accuracy record of at least 90%.' Yikes."
I for one... (Score:4, Funny)
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AI? (Score:5, Funny)
But I think they have this. [wikipedia.org]
Re:AI? (Score:5, Insightful)
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I have leprechauns who tell me to burn things.
Where do you live?
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Now, I need to strap 110 college educated French speakers in parallel, tied to the output of wikiedia.fr...
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And if you need to get a clue, here you go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLAamUlu-H8 [youtube.com]
Re:I for one... (Score:5, Informative)
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In Chapter 2, Manna prevents the walmart workers from running into each other while they are working, because the time spent talking to one another makes them slightly less efficient. Either the Manna system came up with this idea on its ow
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I conclude that the whole Manna story is rather implausible and a gratuitous scare attempt.
No, it's a story for purposes of entertainment and philosophical reflection.. but yes, you do have to get more than half way through it before you can appeciate the message.
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Yes and his argument clearly shows why people are idiots for getting "philosophical reflection" from works of fiction.
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Your post is the second reference to this story, and both times it was implied that it is a real story. But, it refers to the year 2009 in the past tense. Not entirely implausible, but also not a real historical account...unless I slept a LONG time last night.
Forgive me if I'm being captain obvious, here, and this story about manna is well know by a subset of
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Planning to query it anywhere? What's the word count? Broken up, this might make for nice serial in a SF magazine.
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Sorry there's a spelling mistake in your patent. Please try again later.
The Grammar Nazi (pat pending).
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In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
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I always sweared that all those stupid tasks that came by email where from the PHB/PMP project manager. And all the time it was the computer!
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Still, that isn't groundbreaking; it's a simple arrangement of existing methods.
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(Un-disclaimer: I do research in machine learning.)
So you've got this algorithm that, if you give it a bunch of labeled data, it can predict labels for unseen data. (Maybe it labels current best-sellers as likely or unlikely to interest a customer based on his buying habits.) Great. Well, somebody's got to label that data. Human time is expensive. On the other hand, you need as much data as possible: the more the better.
Semi-supervi
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It sounds kind of like having an interactive proof system, except that the prover is a person. It's kind of a unique twist from the patent side (though, perhaps not a giant conceptual leap), and it's not really a YRO issue, IMHOP, though one could imagine job
Re:In other news (Score:4, Insightful)
Slashdot moderation system (Score:2)
I think we just discovered what that new image search engine is!
SCENE INT: Enter room with 300,000 East Indians with turbans sitting in cubicles in front of computer monitors
Or amazon could be getting into the concert ticket business
obligatory (Score:2, Insightful)
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Insert disk... (Score:5, Insightful)
I've done that since the 80's.
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Speaking of prior art, Infocom (Score:2)
>... in drive A:
>
>I've done that since the 80's.
"A human never stands so tall as when stooping to help a small computer." [elsewhere.org]
-- Infocom [retina.net] motto, from Our Circuits, Ourselves, ca. 1983
But hvae you doen it correctly... (Score:2, Funny)
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my computer... (Score:2, Funny)
Summary! (Score:2)
(c) 2007 Nugneant's PC, with help from Marko
This is Amazon's Mechanical Turk system (Score:5, Informative)
--
Code Quality: The Open Source Perspective [spinellis.gr]
Re:This is Amazon's Mechanical Turk system (Score:5, Interesting)
On the "Data Improvement" front, I implemented something like this maybe 5 or 6 years ago. The company had a workforce of "lower" cost data entry staff, and when volumes of data came in over the web, we validated what we could programmitically, then routed questional records to human staff for cleanup and use in building a dictionary of sorts that made our automated process better. It was more cost effective to go this hybrid computing route than to throw lots of "expensive" programming at it.
I had just assumed... (Score:3, Funny)
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Let's do away with the academic level and focus on proven expertise and skill. Otherwise about 60% of our top CEOs and inventors would be off digging ditches somewhere.
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The idea is that humans assist computers, providing what is cutely named artificial artifical intelligence.
You can spin this as "humans assisting computers" but you can just as easily think of it as humans doing work in a workflow dictated by computers. This idea is very, very, common. I mean a call-center is just a place where humans "help" computers to answer questions from other humans. And an IT support system is a place where humans "help" computers to solve the IT problems of other humans. Amazon
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A machine asked me to post this... (Score:2, Funny)
would be against the patent.
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would be against the patent.
You should have posted as AC, because now the patent police (and SCO) are on their way to bust down your door.
In other news.. (Score:5, Funny)
is this even patentable (Score:2, Interesting)
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That is not true.
"...to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.""
about obvious:
" Even if the subject matter sought to be patented is not exactly shown by the prior art, and involves one or more differences over the most nearly similar thing already known, a patent may still be ref
No, it isn't... (Score:2)
It's nothing but "skills based routing [wikipedia.org]," applied to a broader range of problems. It's like trying to patent the wheel, because you used 5 of them when building your pentacycle [spencerbro...allery.com].
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Someone could invent a way to turn shit into rocket fuel and Slashdot residents would say it wasn't novel.
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The spaceship Discovery, from the 2001 and 2010 movies, used ammonia/oxygen as fuel.
And ammonia can be derived from shit/piss.
Voila!
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Just reenforces how little the average Slashdotter knows about the novelty test of patent law.
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There is no way a computer (at this time) could actually rate posts as off-topic, funny etc so people (of various educational backgrounds) are assigned by the computer to process the information and return the result to the computer. This is then verified by others doing the same thing, as well as meta moderated and all the other bits that go into who gets selected to get mod points in the future.
Gratz Ama
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Eh? (Score:2)
Re:Eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Interactive proof system with a human prover == not terribly scary to me.
Yeah, but a patent on it is. Even more scary is a patent on a program that really just prompts the user for input.
Scary Sci-Fi? Modern life? (Score:3, Insightful)
Your scary sci-fi scenario sounds remarkably like modern working life - refined by years of Taylorism.
Could an invention like this... (Score:4, Funny)
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Read manna ( http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm [marshallbrain.com] ) and then see if you'd really want that.
Prior Art (Score:2)
Re:Prior Art (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine I invent a new kind of lawn mower. I file a patent to protect my invention for 20 years so I can commercialize it without having to worry about the existing lawn mower companies snapping up my invention and beating me to market. What's the title on the patent going to be? That's right:
"A mechanism for the automated trimming of grass."
In the patent I will describe how the mechanism works. What prior art there has been in automatted trimming of grass, why my invention is novel and how hard/easy it is to manufacture.
So will get posted to Slashdot about it?
"Man Patents Lawnmower."
Then everyone will have a bit of a moan about how the patent office doesn't know what they're doing anymore and maybe they'll quote a few lines from the patent where I'm outlining what a lawnmower is with the intention of claiming that this is what I am patenting.
"Human Computation" video (Score:2, Informative)
RSS said "ASS" (Score:5, Funny)
"Amazon Patents Humans Ass"
that had me rolling on the floor!
Re:RSS said "ASS" (Score:5, Funny)
They'll be back! (Score:4, Funny)
This is not a troll... (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't flame me, I'm physically disabled myself and therefore am quite familiar with the troubles disabled people of all kinds face in particular when it comes to finding meaningful employment...
Re:This is not a troll... (Score:4, Interesting)
There's a lot of people out there who want to be offended and are looking for ways to be offended. Why? It's a form of bullying, IMHO. They want a reason to order you to change behavior. And when you ask them why they are offended, they give some half-ass answer. It's just a power trip.
Sorry about your handicap and I'm sorry you had to mention it so that you wouldn't be modded "Troll" or "Flamebait".
Re:This is not a troll... (Score:5, Funny)
And my 5-year-old would be happy because he'd get to play "games" as much as he wanted.
"Is it bedtime yet?"
"I SAID CLICK ON THE DOGS!!!"
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Honestly, I'd rather have someone with disabilities doing this than bagging my groceries (and smashing my eggs).
I have a family member who is mentally handicapped. It is very hard for her to find a job that she can do well. I think it's insulting to let someone handicapped do a job in a sub-par fashion. Handicapped people should be able to do a job, obviously, with reasonable accommodations, in order to keep the job. And yet, mentally handicapped people need jobs; it's an important
Already done (Score:4, Informative)
The employees all wear walkie-talkies and I've heard them come on with an obviously computer synthesized voice telling them a "guest" needed assistance in _____ dept. Or more team members were needed to cashier, ect requesting to know who would address the issue. And they would answer back to it just like they were acknowledging their boss's orders.
Re:Already done (Score:4, Informative)
As for the "Additional cashiers to the front lane," that is actually triggered by the cashiers themselves via a button on their registers. Typically, the manager up front would just call for backup directly if there was a sudden wave of customers, but on occasion, the manager would be busy elsewhere. In that case, one of the cashiers could just press the button without stopping (i.e., slowing down) to do it manually. More practically, the cashiers aren't given walkie-talkies because the collective noise from ten nearby walkies would be disruptive to the customers. Also, the phones at each lane were tied into the walkie system, but it didn't work very well, and it was just easier to push the button.
Probably the worst computer-control issue at Target was the "speed score" system. Basically, after every transaction, they'd assign you a score (either G for green, or R for red), indicating whether you were fast enough on that transaction. Your overall scores were then tabulated on a monthly basis. When I first started, you wouldn't know your score on an individual customer, and you could only know your monthly average. Being a 17-year-old, I tried to get the highest score possible, and I did pretty well (something like best average in the store for six months). However, about halfway through my tenure there, they switched to a system that showed you your score after each customer, which soon led me to see how flawed it actually was. You see, I quickly figured out that if not for the customers themselves, I would have gotten a G on every transaction. The problem was that the system basically worked by assigning every item an allowed scan time (so a thing of dog food might be 30 seconds, while a pencil might be 5 seconds). From what I could tell, it also allowed a certain amount of time for payment. What I noticed is that as long as there were a few items (about four or more), I would always get a G, no matter what. When it came down to just a couple of items, I would often get a R. Why? As it turned out, the customer would squander my allowed time by taking a long time to figure out the machine that Target uses for credit and debit cards. In the end, the only effect that speed scores had on me was to get me angry at the people I was supposed to be serving. Yes, you heard that right: I would get a little mad at people for not being efficient enough.
Prior art... (Score:2)
For a slightly scarier version, try Vernor Vinge's use of focus in A Fire Upon the Deep.
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Vernor Vinge was exactly what I thought of as well. Although wasn't it A Deepness in the Sky that had focus?
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In Soviet Russia... (Score:2)
*sigh*
I work with prior art in this area (Score:2)
Tape Monkey? (Score:2)
Prior Art (Score:2, Insightful)
"New Algorithms Improve Image Search" http://slashdot.org/articles/07/04/03/1952205.sht
The algorithm is based on users providing input upon computer request to classify images.
I think I've heard about this before somewhere... (Score:2)
Since humans are nearly as smart as Chimpanzees.. (Score:2)
One step further... (Score:2)
Why is this scary? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's things like helping categorize images or finding specific things in databases of images or inspecting contracts -- you know the kind of stuff that's really easy for humans but is really difficult for computers.
I've tried a few in the past, however, most of the available "HITs" pay only a few pennies a piece, so I'm not about to go quitting my day job to sit at home fulfilling these requests quite yet.
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http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-82464639
I wonder if Google has a prior patent and does the Amazon patent infringe?
Metropolis (Score:2)
Obvious, I declare (Score:2)
Those skilled in the art will also recognize this "invention" as being very similar to the Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders Project [pgdp.net], which is notable for a) rocking and b) having gone online before the patent was filed.
It's to the point of insanity now—it's
My patent application is pending (Score:2)
We're all playthings of the rich now... (Score:2)
Is this bad? Hard to say--maybe our new overlords know better than we how to spend society's resources. We shall see...
Why (Score:2)
Why did Amazon.com file such a patent? And where does it fit into Amazon.com's current market niche. Their nick is Online Retailer.
Already done, the call centre (Score:2)
In the call centre, humans are made to wear headphones with the little microphone thingy. They are strapped into chairs, and an IV is inserted into each arm, one containing a stimulant, the other a relaxant. Electrodes for measuring galvanic skin response, as well as heart monitors are attached. The central computer queues calls, and assigns them to available humans. If it is detected that a human is becoming agitated, the relaxant iv drip is opened. If the human seems too relaxed, the stimulant drip i
The spammers have prior art (Score:2)
My friends and i had this idea years ago (Score:2)
It was a great idea until P2P killed to Porn problem... now everyone has unlimited access to Porn, why would they do work for it anymore... even if they did, they'd post in on a network and we'd lose half our workforce for the day until we got some new content they wanted.
Oh well, good luck Amazon... hope your business model is
Re:So What? (Score:5, Informative)
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That's ok, I already hold a patent on chewing food before swallowing it. So if you want people to actually make any use of the fork and spoon, I suggest you pay me royalties. A billion dollars should do it. That way if you don't pay up, I can always sue google.
It is really still people helping people (Score:2)
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