Is Data Annotation Legit? How Reliable Is It for Machine Learning?

Is data annotation legit or not? What do you say? You must have seen different posts running around different social media platforms to earn $20 per hour or more by completing small projects related to data annotation.

There are several companies on the internet that allow workers to work part-time on their platform and make money such as taskup-AI, remotetasks, Amazon Mechanical Turk, and Data Annotation Tech.

These companies usually focus on different tasks related to data annotation to support AI technology and machine learning. However, it is also very debatable how much these companies are authentic and legit to keep yourself safe from any scam. 

In the following discussion, we dive into a very popular company that provides work to several online or freelance data annotators by paying them a reasonable amount in return. Let’s see what their working process is and how they entertain their workers.

What is Data Annotation Tech?

Data Annotation Tech is a company that offers data annotation and freelances as a global platform for data annotators. The annotators get simple tasks that they have to perform such as labeling images, categorizing the text data, and doing small projects on transcribing the audio.

Later, the experts used this data to train different machine-learning algorithms. These algorithms are currently the backbone of several top-notch cutting-edge technologies.

There are so many people involved in data annotation projects every day. However, still, there is no proper record of the annotators and freelancers who are working with them.

According to a research study that happened in 2021, there are almost 163 million profiles present on the online labor platform.

Moreover, among these profiles, there are almost 3.3 million profile users who have completed at least ten tasks on the platform and earned almost $1,000. However, it is still quite controversial to say whether data annotation legit or not.

How Does Data Annotation Work?

If you want to work on data annotation tech, it is pretty simple to reach the company’s platform. You have to create your account by signing in to their network. Then, you have to complete an assessment to qualify for further programs.

The duration and type of the assessment can vary for different people as some people, have to complete the tasks within 1 hour and some get an assignment duration of 3 hours.

If you pass the data annotation starter assessment they will contact you and offer you paid work. However, if you fail the assessment you will not hear from them in the future.

How much Money do the Workers Get?

Workers get paid according to their tasks, hours they spend on the tasks, and location. For example, if you are located in the USA, you may get paid $20 for tasks like labeling photos and completing writing exercises.

Similarly, if the tasks involve more specifications and complexity you will get paid accordingly. For example, data annotation tech is offering 40 dollars to complete coding tasks.

Moreover, the payment for completing the different tasks will be significantly reduced if you are located outside the USA. For example, labelers will get less than $20 in other locations.

Most companies prefer to provide tasks to USA-based workers as they possess more knowledge and technical skills than others due to cultural differences.

Type of Tasks on Data Annotation Tech

Data Annotation works as a middleman to offer you several projects related to annotation work. Once you have completed the initial test and required training to complete the projects, you will get work like:

• Image Classification: In these projects, you have to identify and label different physical objects in an image such as cars, bridges, traffic signals, pedestrians, etc.
• Transcription Projects: In these projects they have to convert audio and video messages into text form.
• Text Labeling: Labeling can be of different types such as emotional analysis or sentiment recognition where you have to identify any positive or negative emotion in written text.

Story of Data Annotation

The real discussion is how much you trust the platform if you want to work on it. Well, let’s see different reviews to know whether the truth behind the data annotation is legit or not.

Well, by taking insights from an online discussion board, we have reached some points that might help the readers understand the concept of data annotation more. 

According to a worker who worked on data annotation tech for almost 2 years, they provide simple and complicated tasks to the workers and pay according to the complications and type of work or according to the hours they spend to complete the task.

It is a good part-time work platform that allows you to make money by using your skills. He also added that he has made around $3k by working here as a part-time worker in the past couple of years. Moreover, there are projects where people can get $20 to $25 per hour and make $400 to $500 in a week. 

On the other hand, there were cases where people shared their negative experiences while working on data annotation tech. Some reported that they did not get any projects or no one contacted them after they qualified by passing the data annotation starter assessment.

Similarly, one writer also reported that he did not get paid after completing the task, and the accounts were deleted or deactivated when he tried to reach them. These cases again raise the question of whether data annotation is legit or a scam.

Final Thoughts

If you do some research on the internet to see the validity of data annotation, you will find several companies and professionals backed Data Annotation Tech.

However, there are still some potential risks related to payment and legitimacy; therefore, you must read the reviews and do research before applying for any job.

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