Google Image Labeler Uses Human Labor

Google Image Labeler launched today. It’s a game, based on Luis von Ahn’s ESP Game, that puts two random users together and asks them to label/tag an image. The idea is that if two people come up with the same label, it is probably a good one and will make Google’s image search better.

See Google Blogoscoped for the initial story and Danny Sullivan who found a ton of additional facts, including a video by Luis von Ahn stating that this game could effectively label all Google indexed images in two months.

I tried the game. It’s fun, in a why-am-I-doing-this kind of way. I focused on labeling everything I saw as “purple” and “Donald Trump”.