NEAR Tasks Launches AI Marketplace on NEAR to Revolutionize the Future of Work
NEAR FOUNDATION
November 16, 2023
The convergence of AI and Web3 captured the tech industry’s imagination in 2023 — but few ideas have actually become a working reality. An exciting exception is NEAR Tasks, a global gigs marketplace poised to reshape AI training while leveraging the power of NEAR blockchain. Officially launched at NEARCON 2023 with its first product beta launching this week, NEAR Tasks is a self-service platform where anyone can easily list and complete AI requests, setting a new standard for quality data labeling.

Unlocking the Power of AI and Web3
NEAR Tasks envisions a future where AI and Web3 technologies complement each other, fostering an ecosystem driven by transparency and efficiency. This symbiotic relationship aims to streamline task matching, review processes, and manage data quality more effectively at scale.

Implemented on the NEAR Protocol, NEAR Tasks utilizes on-chain tasker IDs, smart contracts for automated payments, and $NEAR transactions for global payments with minimal fees. This ensures accountability, motivates high-quality outcomes, and addresses the challenge of underpaid workers in the AI sector.

NEAR Tasks in a Nutshell
In the age of AI, despite popular narratives about LLMs replacing a range of human jobs, human intelligence actually becomes even more important: as models get more complex, they need human expertise for fine-tuning models and increasing subject matter specialization. This user-friendly platform seamlessly connects task listing, work review, and crypto rewards, propelling AI model training into a new era through direct human feedback loops and a flexible self-service marketplace.

For business clients and AI builders, NEAR Tasks provides a self-service, plug-and-play solution, liberating users from the constraints of costly managed service options. Blockchain integration on NEAR facilitates efficient data labeling by verified human experts, who can build reputation and get paid in real time for contributing quality work to the platform. 

For taskers, the NEAR Tasks marketplace offers a transparent path to monetizing their skills and knowledge, unlocking new revenue streams in the ever-evolving AI labor frontier, and changing the future of digital work. There are more than a billion participants in the global on-demand gig economy today, showing the need for more opportunities as well as greater specialization for those with particular training or expertise. With more reliable identity verification for accounts, faster work review, and the ability to pay taskers with crypto, taskers can get paid more reliably and work at the pace they wish — making the gig economy more supportive to specialized workers. 

In his introduction to NEAR Tasks at NEARCON in Lisbon, Senior Engineer Momo Araki pointed out: “There’s an interdependence for the system to work properly. You have to reform the central inspection principle wielded by task providers, and maintain sybil-resistance so workers can’t spoof the platform. It’s loosely analogous to a ‘proof-of-work’ model, where work performed well also translates to earning reputation, which leads to accessing further opportunities.” Incorporating more trust into a tasks marketplace in this way also produces better results for the AI builders and businesses trying to refine their models. 

A Fair and Transparent Platform for AI Training
In an AI landscape where autonomy often overshadows human involvement, NEAR Tasks recognizes the vital role of a global workforce responsible for data labeling and validation. The platform introduces on-chain digital IDs for taskers, ensuring transparency and accountability.

Transactions exclusively conducted in $NEAR guarantee rapid global payments with minimal fees, directly confronting the issue of underpaid AI workers in what is known in the industry as “AI sweatshops.”

“Human intelligence forms the base of artificial intelligence, and it’s time we give AI tasks the recognition they deserve as legitimate jobs in the AI economy,” says Catherine Yushina, Head of Operations at NEAR Tasks.

AI Is NEAR
At NEARCON 2023, NEAR Co-Founder Illia Polosukhin — an AI researcher himself and co-creator of transformers, the architecture powering today’s major LLMs like ChatGPT — named AI as one of the core verticals for the NEAR ecosystem heading into 2024. From transforming governance and business operations with AI agents to provable provenance for data and content, as well as novel marketplaces like NEAR Tasks and hybrid human-AI working environments, we’re at the very beginning of an exciting revolution that will change the ways we work, collaborate, transact, research, and govern ourselves. More news is coming before the end of 2023 to position NEAR as the leader at the intersection of AI and Web3. 

Join the AI + Blockchain Movement
If you want to be part of this transformative AI and blockchain convergence shaping the human intelligence market, sign up for the NEAR Tasks waitlist — currently at more than 48,000 applicants. The marketplace opens for public access in Q1 of 2024. You can also reach out to the team directly to request entry into the current Beta. Drop them an email at [email protected] to express your interest by Monday, November 20.

For more information about NEAR Tasks, please visit https://neartasks.ai/.

Follow along on social media:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/near_tasks 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/98907399 
