clickworker

English

Etymology

Compound of click +‎ worker. Equivalent to clickwork +‎ -er.

Noun

clickworker (plural clickworkers)

1. (technology) A person who performs clickwork (repetitive and unskilled digital labour).

   Hypernym: cybertarian

   • 2023 September 11, Morgan Meaker, “These Prisoners Are Training AI”, in Wired‎^[1], San Francisco, C.A.: Condé Nast Publications, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2024-02-06:

     Around the world, millions of so-called "clickworkers" train artificial intelligence models, teaching machines the difference between pedestrians and palm trees, or what combination of words describe violence or sexual abuse. Usually these workers are stationed in the global south, where wages are cheap. OpenAI, for example, uses an outsourcing firm that employs clickworkers in Kenya, Uganda, and India.

   • 2023 September 14, Emma Yeomans, “’Clickwork’ runs like clockwork as prisoners train AI systems”, in The Times‎^[2], London: News UK, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 14 September 2023:

     Many clickworkers operate in a gig economy, using platforms such as Amazon's Mechanical Turk, a name inspired by the 18th-century chess-playing automaton dubbed "the Turk", to pick up brief, specific tasks for fixed pay.