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Amazon will stop accepting new customers for Mechanical Turk

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These may be the last days of Amazon’s Mechanical Turk.

An announcement on the Mechanical Turk website says that on July 30, 2026, the crowdsourcing service will close to new customers. Amazon Web Services says the decision was made after “careful consideration,” adding, “Existing customers can continue to use the service as normal. AWS continues to invest in security and availability improvements for Mechanical Turk, but we do not plan to introduce new features.”

In other words, Amazon isn’t completely pulling the plug, but the service is very much on life support.

First launched in 2005, Mechanical Turk was a marketplace where people were paid tiny amounts to perform simple tasks that resisted full automation — things like completing CAPTCHA challenges or identifying the basic sentiment in a sentence.

In its heyday, the service was at the center of debates around the ethics of crowdsourced labor, and it even played a small role in the early stages of the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal. 

Beginning in 2018, Amazon also began billing it as a way for companies to annotate data to train neural networks as part of its SageMaker AI service.

Less overtly, Mechanical Turk has also been described as the hidden enabler for companies taking a fake-it-till-you-make-it approach to AI, where products marketed as Ai are actually being performed by the Mechanical Turk workforce — all the more fitting since the original Mechanical Turk was itself a hoax, with a hidden human chess player pretending to be a chess-playing machine

Over time, the relationship between Mechanical Turk and AI models grew even more complicated. In a snake-eating-its-own-tail irony, a 2023 analysis found that between 33% and 46% of workers on the platform were using large language models to complete their tasks, raising questions about the reliability of data annotated on the platform and also about whether humans needed to be in the loop at all.

This week, after Amazon’s decision became public, one Reddit user suggested the platform died “years ago,” with workers and researchers abandoning it due to bots and fraud. The user predicted, “Someone at Amazon is going to decide keeping the Mturk servers running is a waste of time and resources and pull the plug entirely.”

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Okpebholo should resign over UK fuel price comparison – APM

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The Allied Peoples Movement (APM) has called on Edo State Governor, Senator Monday Okpebholo, to resign over his comparison of petrol prices in Nigeria and the United Kingdom.

The party said the governor’s comparison failed to take into account the wide difference in income and purchasing power between Nigerians and people living in the UK.

In a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Abubakar Yusuf, the APM also criticised the increase in petrol prices to more than N1,500 per litre, saying Nigerians were expecting a reduction in the cost of fuel.

Yusuf said the APM condemned the sharp rise in petrol prices to more than N1,500 per litre, stressing that Nigerians were expecting the price to come down.

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“It is unfair to compare petrol prices in Nigeria with those in the UK without taking into account the difference in workers’ incomes. Nigeria’s N70,000 minimum wage is far below what workers earn on average in the UK,” the party said.

The APM used teachers to illustrate the difference, saying Nigerian teachers earn about N70,000 or less, while a teacher in the UK starts with a monthly salary of about £2,839.

The party also argued that the two countries have different transport systems. It said Nigerians largely depend on informal and costly transportation, while the UK has a more structured and regulated public transport system supported by government subsidies.

The APM further pointed to other oil-producing countries, including Libya and Iran, where it said petrol is sold at much lower prices.

“What Governor Okpebholo failed to tell Nigerians is the fact that in other oil producing countries such as Libya and even Iran, which is presently at war, petrol is sold at an average of equivalent of N41 to N52 per litre,” the party said.

The party described the governor’s comparison between Nigeria and the UK as provocative, arguing that it could further increase public anger over the rising cost of living.

“It is therefore completely irrational and highly provocative for APC Governor Okpebholo to attempt to compare the situation in the UK to that of Nigeria,” the APM said.

The party also expressed concern that the governor’s comments could be seen as preparing Nigerians for another increase in petrol prices, although it did not provide evidence that such an increase was being planned by the government.

The APM also called on Nigerians to support its presidential candidate, Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde, in the 2027 election.

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Cross River Ikan Sports Fight Back To Beat Gateway Horns 25-19 In Showtime Bowl Series XV Flag Football

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Cross River Ikan Sports bounced back from their heavy opening-week defeat with a spirited second-half performance to beat Gateway Horns 25-19 in Week 2 of the Showtime Bowl Series XV Flag Football season at Showtime Arena on Sunday.

After suffering a 56-13 defeat to Lagos Rebels in Week 1, Ikan Sports needed a response and made the perfect start when quarterback Timothy Atibile connected with Praise Miene for a 28-yard touchdown to establish a 6-0 lead.

Read Also: Rivers Alphas Bounce Back, Edge Delta Braves 31-24 In Showtime Bowl Series XV Flag Football Thriller | Sports247 Nigeria

Gateway Horns, however, gradually found their rhythm. Awosika Oluwafikunmi found Adewole Mosimiloluwa for the tying touchdown before connecting with Odimbu Awele Gift for another score. A successful extra point to Mosimiloluwa gave the Horns a 13-6 advantage.

Ikan Sports immediately hit back through one of the biggest plays of the contest as Atibile connected with Abayomi Agbayewa for a 45-yard touchdown, reducing the deficit to 13-12 before halftime.

Gateway entered the break with the narrow advantage, but Ikan Sports turned the contest around in the second half, scoring 13 points while restricting the Horns to six to complete a 25-19 comeback victory and secure their first win of the season.

Praise Miene was named Match MVP after finishing with 33 receiving yards and a touchdown, earning a 7.4 rating. Atibile also played a central role in the victory and topped the fantasy standings with 4.3 points, while Gateway quarterback Oluwafikunmi recorded 4.0.

The result represents an important recovery for Cross River Ikan Sports following their difficult Week 1 outing, while Gateway Horns will be left disappointed after surrendering a 13-12 halftime advantage.

For Ikan Sports, however, Week 2 delivered exactly what they needed — a response, a comeback and their first victory of the Showtime Bowl Series XV campaign.

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