> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.protein.xyz/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Crowdsourcing and Human Computation
- URL: https://www.protein.xyz/crowdsourcing-and-human-computation/
- Published: 2011-05-11T17:04:04.000Z
- Updated: 2025-05-28T11:03:44.000Z
- Description: We’re excited about the potential of harnessing the power of crowds in human-computer interaction. It’s already been…
- Author: Protein
- Tags: Seeds, Technology, #protein, #Import 2024-06-11 13:15, #author-change-2025-05-28

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/fc/71/fc716215-5729-441a-bd07-e2b50bc413b1/content/images/S3/protein/4672/049b864f-cd46-4fe7-9b57-3f861bde885c.jpg)

We’re excited about the potential of harnessing the power of crowds in human-computer interaction. It’s already been used in creative ways using [Amazon’s Mechanical Turk](https://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome?ref=protein.xyz), which taps into an online workforce and [Wikipedia](http://www.wikipedia.org/?ref=protein.xyz), a massive volunteer project.

At the [CHI 2011 Conference on Human Factors in Computing systems](http://crowdresearch.org/chi2011-workshop/?ref=protein.xyz), a workshop on crowdsourcing pointed us towards the future - computers powered by human brains. Applications currently underway include the likes of computer scientist Michael Bernstein at [MIT](http://mit.edu/?ref=protein.xyz) who has developed a plug-in for [Microsoft Word](http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/?ref=protein.xyz), it works like a spell checker, but it’s powered by humans, who shorten documents and proof-read. Chunks of a document are sent to the many brains of Mechanical Turk where they leave edited and are automatically reassembled into Word.

Clearly human-powered apps are on the up, as there are so many tasks humans do with ease online that computers cannot. A plug-in for Photoshop which crops out people or objects, or a search engine that ranks in cuteness? See more [here](http://crowdresearch.org/chi2011-workshop/?ref=protein.xyz) and [here](http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2011/05/turning-crowds-into-computers.html?ref=protein.xyz) via [New Scientist.](http://www.newscientist.com/?ref=protein.xyz)