Amazon is closing Mechanical Turk, the human workforce it sold as AI
Amazon is closing Mechanical Turk on 30 September. The marketplace is 21 years old, and it paid people a few cents at a time to do work that computers could not. Jeff Bezos once called it “artificial artificial intelligence”.
A banner across the MTurk homepage sets out the decision. “We regularly evaluate our programs, tools, and services and make adjustments based on those assessments,” it reads. “Following an assessment, we’ve made the decision to close AWS Mechanical Turk, effective September 30, 2026.”
The notice then repeats the date and adds one word to it. Mechanical Turk will “permanently close”, and workers and requesters are pointed to an FAQ page to learn how to prepare.
Annie Palmer reported the closure for CNBC on Tuesday evening. Amazon has published no separate statement beyond the banner.
What Mechanical Turk was
Launched in 2005, the platform matched workers with what Amazon calls Human Intelligence...
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