Mechanical Turk is Closing. The Workers Who Built AI Are Still Here

Last week news broke that Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT) will close on Sept. 30. It’s a virtual ‘workplace’ that once had more than 500,000 workers signed up.But this isn’t just a story about the end of an aging technology platform. It’s a story of what happens when tech giants are allowed to build businesses based on the exploitation of workers, and then just walk away when the model no longer serves them.

Amazon Mechanical Turk launched in late 2005 as part of Amazon’s growing lineup of services. Simply put, it was designed as a marketplace where employers, known as “requesters,” could post work for approved workers to complete. The tasks ranged from surveys and data collection to AI training, content moderation, and government work. They were often referred to as “microtasks” or “data work.” And while a handful of institutions embraced fair-pay guidelines, the work was typically underpaid.

Nonetheless, the platform attracted hundreds of thousands of workers, many of whom, like me, relied on AMT as a full-time job. I’ve spoken at length in many venues about how I found myself on AMT. The short version is that I experienced a life-altering illness and needed to work from home. This was 2015, when remote work was far less common than it is today.

Over the years, Amazon and its supporters have argued that Mechanical Turk was never intended to provide a full-time job. Others have suggested that workers were simply choosing to accept low pay. I can say from experience that I had no meaningful choice.

My story is not unique. This work was marketed to single parents, caregivers, people with disabilities, and others who needed flexible work but faced barriers to traditional employment. Mechanical Turk offered that flexibility, but it was at a cost. Workers were expected to bear the platform's risks while having little power over its rules.

At the beginning of 2020, I became an organizer with Turkopticon, a worker-run, worker-led advocacy organization that helped workers navigate the multitude of problems that arose on AMT. These included account suspensions caused by faulty algorithms, mass rejections of completed work, and archaic security mechanisms that could ban workers who shared an IP address, including family members living in the same household. Organizers also met with AMT teams to deliver worker feedback and propose solutions to platform problems.

Later, as a community-based researcher with the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR), I focused on worker exploitation through the Data Workers’ Inquiry project, helping to bring workers’ experiences and stories to public attention. One thing is very evident: the people doing the labor that made today’s automations possible are the least visible in the system.

Now, fast-forward to the Aug. 25 headlines about AMT shutting down. Only a fraction of workers and requesters were shown a bright yellow banner announcing the closure at the top of their screens. Instead, the news spread through online worker groups and forums. Most workers I encountered were finding out the news from one another en masse.

The banner reads:

“Mechanical Turk will close September 30, 2026.

We regularly evaluate our programs, tools, and services and make adjustments based on those assessments. Following an assessment, we've made the decision to close Amazon Mechanical Turk, effective September 30, 2026. Amazon Mechanical Turk will permanently close on September 30, 2026. For Workers and Requesters currently using the service, please visit our FAQ page to learn how you can prepare for this closure.”

Two days later, on Aug. 27, a bulk email arrived from Amazon. “Thank you for being part of Amazon Mechanical Turk's journey and for helping shape the crowdsourcing space,” it began, before announcing the closure and urging everyone to update their payment info. “We truly appreciate your contributions to MTurk over the years,” it ended.

One month.

In one month, workers scattered across more than 200 countries will lose access to income they relied on. Some have spent decades building their livelihoods around this platform. Hundreds of thousands of workers who have remained largely invisible while producing the data, evaluations, classifications, transcriptions, and other forms of labor that helped power today’s AI economy will be left without the platform—and meager income—it provided.

And this raises a much bigger question: Who is responsible for the people whose labor makes so-called technological progress possible?

Have you ever wondered why so many of the world’s largest technology companies are based in the United States, while so much of the labor supporting them takes place elsewhere? Companies including Amazon and Meta have built global systems that allow them to source digital labor across borders, often at extremely low rates. The language surrounding “data work” and “microtasks” has helped make this labor appear fundamentally different from other forms of employment, while the absence of comprehensive legislation has left workers with few meaningful protections.

There have been efforts to change this. In the US, Senator Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Representative Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., have been among the lawmakers calling attention to the treatment of data workers and digital laborers. But congressional attention tends to focus on AI’s effects on traditional workplaces and employment. This work matters, but it leaves a glaring gap: Who is protecting the workers AI systems depend on in the first place?

The fact that there is still no comprehensive federal framework protecting data workers reveals a fundamental problem. The government does not adequately consider data work or the labor that underpins AI. Without even a consistent understanding of who these workers are, what they do, and how much their labor contributes to the economy, how can we expect policymakers to regulate the industry responsibly?

It is imperative that citizens contact their representatives and tell them that “AI” is about more than data centers, chatbots, and workplace automation. Behind every seemingly autonomous system are people whose labor is hidden from view.

The workers of Amazon Mechanical Turk have been part of the AI economy for more than two decades. They helped build the infrastructure that made today’s technology possible, often without recognition, security, or a meaningful voice in the systems they helped create.

Now the platform is disappearing.

But the workers are still here.

Their labor is still needed.

And the question we should be asking is not simply what comes after Mechanical Turk. It is what kind of technological economy do we want to build next—and who gets to govern it?

You can read the FAQ from Amazon here.