What: Complete “human intelligence tasks” (HITS)
Expected pay: pennies
Husl $core: $$$$$
Where: National
Requirements: A computer and time to waste
Review: The idea behind Mechanical Turk is that humans can sometimes do things better than machines. (Go figure.) Thus, if someone needs to pick the best photograph in a series; or gather details from shopping receipts, they can request the service of a Mechanical Turk and pay you to do the task. The problem is that the pay is an insult to anyone who truly does believe that humans can do things better than machines, amounting to pennies per task. Wikipedia estimates that Turkers earn $1 per hour. You have something better to do with your time, right?
Pretty much every work opportunity on SideHusl ranks better than this one. If you need telecommuting work, look at the design, drawing, surveys, tech help, web design and virtual assistant categories. (If you’re artistic, also consider the “sell art” category.) If you can show up in person, you are likely to find reasonably paying positions in animal care, child care, cooking, driving, delivery, eldercare and tourism.
What Turkers say:
“Better requester and pay needed. There are hundreds of jobs available, but the pay is merely a couple of cents per hour.”
“There are a lot of very low paying HIT’s that only pay pennies that are fairly brainless but there are some higher paying opportunities of several dollars for a couple minutes. Personally I work a few hours a week and always reach my $100/month goal, many months breaking $150-$250 dependent on work availability and how much I put into it.
“Amazon Mechanical Turk is a very slow, extremely boring way to make money. You make 20-75 cents an hour. I only recommend this site to desperate people.”
