Amazon refers to an 18th-century automaton that could allegedly play chess to describe its crowdsourcing marketplace 'Amazon Mechanical Turk' as

The name "Amazon Mechanical Turk" is a reference to "The Turk," a famous 18th-century automaton chess player. The Turk was a mechanical device that appeared to play chess against a human opponent and often won. However, it was later revealed that the Turk was not a true automaton but was controlled by a human chess master hidden inside.

Here's how Amazon uses this concept:

1. Amazon's crowdsourcing marketplace, Amazon Mechanical Turk, is a platform where businesses (known as Requesters) can hire remote workers (known as Workers) to perform tasks that computers are currently unable to do.

2. The tasks, known as HITs (Human Intelligence Tasks), can range from simple data validation and research to more subjective tasks like survey participation, content moderation, and more.

3. The idea is that by leveraging the power of human intelligence, Amazon Mechanical Turk can accomplish tasks more effectively and accurately than a computer could on its own.

4. So, just like the 18th-century automaton chess player that was actually powered by a hidden human, Amazon Mechanical Turk is a platform that appears to be an automated system but is actually powered by a large, distributed workforce of human beings.

5. Therefore, Amazon refers to its crowdsourcing marketplace as "Amazon Mechanical Turk" to highlight the combination of human and artificial intelligence to complete tasks.