Amazon Stops Registering New Requesters on Mechanical Turk

Amazon is no longer accepting new requesters on its Mechanical Turk platform, TechCrunch reports. According to the outlet, this may signal that the service is nearing the end of its run.

Mechanical Turk was launched by Amazon more than a decade and a half ago as a crowdsourcing marketplace: companies posted small tasks that are easier for a human to do than to automate — data labeling, content moderation, surveys and the like — while workers received a small payment in return.

For a long time the platform remained an important tool for researchers and developers, including in the field of machine learning, where labeling training data by hand was required.

TechCrunch notes that the decision to stop taking on new clients may point to a gradual winding down of Amazon's service. The report offers no details about the platform's future or the timeline for a possible shutdown.

Source: TechCrunch