Amazon Mturk: An Easy Side Hustle with Low Effort

If you haven’t heard of Amazon Mechanical Turk, or Mturk, it is a crowdsourcing platform implemented by Amazon. Amazon defines it as “Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) is a marketplace for completion of virtual tasks that requires human intelligence. The Mechanical Turk service gives businesses access to a diverse, on-demand, scalable workforce and gives Workers a selection of thousands of tasks to complete whenever it’s convenient.” I have been doing work on this site since 2008, with a brief hiatus here and there when life got super busy.

In this article, I’ll talk about where the idea for the platform came from, how long it’s been around, and how you can make a little extra money doing tasks for cash. But first, let’s explore where the unusual name came from.

What does the name ‘Turk’ mean?

Wolfgang von Kempelen, a Hungarian nobleman, astounded Europe in 1769 by inventing a mechanical chess-playing automaton that defeated virtually every opponent it met. Kempelen’s “Turk,” a life-sized wooden mannequin clothed with a fur-trimmed robe and a turban, toured Europe, confusing such bright adversaries as Benjamin Franklin and Napoleon Bonaparte. Kempelen would slide open the cabinet doors to expose the sophisticated arrangement of gears, cogs, and springs meant to persuade skeptical audiences. He told them that he had created an artificial intelligence-based decision-making computer. What they didn’t realize was that the Mechanical Turk was hiding a chess master within.

Amazon took this idea as inspiration for naming its platform after this contraption. The idea is that some tasks can only be done by humans, thus the need for hiring humans, like you, to do these tasks. The service was conceived by Venky Harinarayan in a U.S. patent disclosure in 2001. However, MTurk launched publicly on November 2, 2005. It grew quickly and by early- to mid-November 2005, there were tens of thousands of jobs available on the site, all uploaded to the system by Amazon itself for some of its internal tasks that required human intelligence. Later, HIT types expanded to include transcribing, rating, image tagging, surveys, and writing and the service opened to Requesters other than Amazon.

Tasks on Mturk are called ‘HITs’

So what is a HIT? A HIT, or human intelligence task, is what you do for payment on the platform. A HIT is a single, self-contained virtual job that a Worker may complete by working on it, submitting a response, and collecting a reward. Requesters are customers that produce HITs, which are then performed by Workers, like you. In my experience, most Requesters are students that are performing experiments for which they need human subjects to answer questions.

You will get an approval rate, which is a percentage of the number of HITs that you submit and the number that are approved. A HIT can be rejected if the Worker misses an attention check, which is meant to help Requesters filter out Workers that might be using bots to complete work. As you can imagine, this defeats the purpose of the work and will get you ejected from the platform very quickly. A word to the wise, don’t use a bot.

How much many can you make?

The amount of money you make on Mturk can vary. It depends on the amount of work available and what Requesters are looking for. Occasionally, HITs require a certain demographic. For instance, requesters may require someone currently enrolled in school or of a certain age. My personal goal is to get at least $100 a week. I work seven days a week, so this breaks down to a personal goal of $14.30 a day. This is absolutely doable for me, and I don’t have a Master’s qualification. By the way, there is an extension that you can download to set and track daily goals. More on that later.

For some tasks, you will need to apply for qualification. This is simply something a Requester asks Workers to do to make sure they qualify for the task. The Master’s qualification is a bit of a unicorn in the Mturk community. It is randomly assigned to Workers by Amazon, and there isn’t really any rhyme or reason for the qualification. I’ve done a lot of research on the subject and the only thing I have uncovered is that it is reserved for Workers who do a wide variety of tasks and who maintain a high approval rate. I do not have the Master’s qualification, but I’m hopeful that someday Amazon will see fit to assign that qualification to me.

Here is how to get started

To get started, you can go to the Amazon Mturk website to apply. Once your application is approved, you will need to provide your information and enter details about how you will be paid. When you get started, you will also want to go to Turkerview and register. This is basically a feedback forum for Workers to report their experiences with Requesters. This is an invaluable tool because it allows you to vet which Requesters you would like to work for based on the experience of other workers.

You will also want to download the extension Mturk Suite to streamline the way you claim work. I have only ever used it on Chrome, so I’m not sure if it is available on all browsers. It is integrated with Turkerview to allow you to quickly review the feedback for Requesters and leave feedback of your own. There are a number of options to filter tasks based on pay, feedback score, etc. I have found this tool absolutely necessary as it gives a brief overview of tasks, Requester feedback, and allows you to claim work quickly.

You aren’t going to get rich using this platform. However, if you are looking to make a little extra side money for gas or coffee, this might be the perfect platform for you. The tasks are quick and simple, and there is no limit to how much or how little you can do.