this service always made me feel uncomfortable, even the origin of the name “mechanical turk”… an illusion of automation meant to fool others, but really just the hidden labor of a foreigner
You're technically not wrong, but from your tone and wording I think you have a misconception about the machine, or are trying to induce such a misconception in others, to inspire others to take offense at the premise. There was never a Turkish person hidden inside the Mechanical Turk. The "foreigners" inside were a variety of chess masters from Germany, Austrian, French and the UK. Not the oppressed immigrants a modern reader might imagine when speaking of Turks and unspecified foreigners. And I suspect the chessmaster operators of the original Mechanical Turk were not remotely representative of the demographics of modern Amazon MT users. A Frenchman participating in a scheme to bamboozle some Austrian princes is not exactly something worth getting bent out of shape over.
(Furthermore I think in at least some of the cases, the chessmasters were operating the machine in their home country and weren't foreigners at all.)
The name was meant to inspire dread in those playing against it, much like how you know shit has gotten real when you have to fight robot Hitler in an American game.
The name “mechanical turk” comes from a fake chess-playing machine that hid a person inside of it, whom actually operated said machine. So I think the name is quite appropriate for this service.
legrande|4 years ago
They even say it on the site: 'Artificial Artificial Intelligence'
wearywanderer|4 years ago
You're technically not wrong, but from your tone and wording I think you have a misconception about the machine, or are trying to induce such a misconception in others, to inspire others to take offense at the premise. There was never a Turkish person hidden inside the Mechanical Turk. The "foreigners" inside were a variety of chess masters from Germany, Austrian, French and the UK. Not the oppressed immigrants a modern reader might imagine when speaking of Turks and unspecified foreigners. And I suspect the chessmaster operators of the original Mechanical Turk were not remotely representative of the demographics of modern Amazon MT users. A Frenchman participating in a scheme to bamboozle some Austrian princes is not exactly something worth getting bent out of shape over.
(Furthermore I think in at least some of the cases, the chessmasters were operating the machine in their home country and weren't foreigners at all.)
arglebarglegar|4 years ago
[deleted]
kongin|4 years ago
The name was meant to inspire dread in those playing against it, much like how you know shit has gotten real when you have to fight robot Hitler in an American game.
01acheru|4 years ago
Anyway, I don’t like that service either.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_Turk
klyrs|4 years ago