Jonathan Zittrain as part of The Internet as Playground and Factory http://digitallabor.org/

1. MINDS FOR SALE
Jonathan Zittrain | jz@jz.org
Harvard Law School | Berkman Center for Internet & Society
14 November 2009
1

2. Kinzer (2009)
Kinzer (2009)
2

3. 3

4. 4

5. 5

6. $/TASK
(~ SKILL)
PARTICIPATION
6

7. “The mission of the X PRIZE Foundation is to bring
about radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity.
We do this by creating and managing prizes that drive
innovators to solve some of the greatest challenges
facing the world today.”
7

8. 8

9. 9

10. 10

11. 11

12. 12

13. THE ESP GAME
PLAYER 1 PLAYER 2
GUESSING: CAR GUESSING: BOY
GUESSING: HAT GUESSING: CAR
GUESSING: KID SUCCESS!
YOU AGREE ON CAR
SUCCESS!
YOU AGREE ON CAR
(von Ahn, 2006)
Ahn,
13

14. © 2004 Carnegie Mellon University, all rights reserved. Patent Pending.
(von Ahn, 2006)
Ahn,
THE ESP GAME IS FUN
4.1 MILLION LABELS WITH 23,000 PLAYERS
THERE ARE MANY PEOPLE THAT PLAY OVER 20
HOURS A WEEK
(von Ahn, 2006)
Ahn,
14

15. LABELING THE ENTIRE WEB
5000 PEOPLE PLAYING SIMULTANEOUSLY CAN LABEL
O GS U OUS C
ALL IMAGES ON GOOGLE IN 30 DAYS!
DAYS!
INDIVIDUAL GAMES IN YAHOO! AND MSN AVERAGE
OVER 5,000 PLAYERS AT A TIME
(von Ahn, 2006)
Ahn,
15

16. 16

17. concerns
• participant’s point of view
– surveillance
– alienation
– moral valence
– misappropriation
• s stemic
systemic
– race to the bottom
– $  reputation, social pressure
– crowding out
17

18. 18

19. 19

20. 20

21. 21

22. Gov’t assumes fixed cost of coding each photo as a
man, woman, or child under 15. $14.4K baseline; $16K if
90% accuracy. 28 million adult women and 28 million
ll d l d ll
adult men left to look through. On average, the target
will be found halfway through the set. At 20 photos
and 2 cents per HIT, with an assumed 80% error rate:
$17,906.
22

23. 23

24. 24

25. 25

26. CAPTCHA SWEAT SHOPS
SPAM COMPANIES HIRE HUMANS TO
SOLVE CAPTCHAS ALL DAY LONG
$2.50 PER HOUR FOR EACH HUMAN
720 CAPTCHAS PER HOUR PER HUMAN
1/3 CENT PER ACCOUNT
Source: Luis von Ahn,
Captchas and Cycles
Free Nude Photos
Type the word in the box if you want
to see the next picture
Source: Luis von Ahn,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7067
962.stm Captchas and Cycles
26

27. solutions
• copy-adapt-paste labor standards
copy-adapt-
– differences among 0¢, 1¢ … and -1¢?
g ,
• ESP game = Ender’s game?
• But: flu map … ReCaptcha?
ReCaptcha?
– do we care about addiction?
– worker reputation portability
• clickworkers of the world, unite!
world
• disclosure
• opt-out
opt-
27

28. 28

29. 29

30. 30

31. 31

32. MINDS FOR SALE
Jonathan Zittrain | jz@jz.org
Harvard Law School | Berkman Center for Internet & Society
14 November 2009
32