Dbrain has developed and implemented SPOCK (Subjective Proof of Crowdwork) Protocol to ensure that the crowdsourced work is of a high quality. Dbrain is a blockchain based solution to allow even the small organizations get access to high quality labelled data to train AI applications at low cost. A typical AI training cycle starts with data owners providing raw data that the application can analyze for training. But before the application can use the data, it has to be labelled and validated.
Labelling data is still a manual exercise. It is an exhausting time and labour intensive exercise where a lot of human errors can slip in. This is also the step which makes or breaks the AI application. Experts believe that the quality of datasets contributes more than 80% of AI application success. While access to crowdworkers is easy to get, the challenge most developers face is with ensuring the quality of work delivered.
This the problem that SPOCK solves. The key to ensuring high-quality work is to put the right incentives in place. Drain's experience with crowdwork made them realize that this can be achieved if following factors are satisfied:
Online calculations: Crowdworkers should be able to compute work results using only the data stored publicly in the Ethereum smart contracts and in the permission blockchain accessible to task requesters and workers. They should have no need to look up any information outside of the platform.
Transparency: All billing events and changes to worker ratings must be visible to both the task requester and worker The triggers of these events must be obvious to both the parties.
Reproducibility: Calculations must be simple enough that an involved party can reproduce them independently.I.e. Worker A and Worker B working on the same task, with no knowledge of each other, must arrive at the same work result
Aligned incentives: The system should motivate workers to behave diligently and conscientiously by providing a good reward and punishment balance. Dbrain ensures that the crowdworkers are compensated for the work performed as soon as they submit a verified work result by paying them with Dbrain coin (DBR), an ERC-20 cryptocurrency. The platform makes it possible to meet the exploding demand for hand-labelled AI data with the abundant supply of global crowdworkers. It can potentially reach over 2 billion unbanked people in low-wage countries and makes them a part of the new global economy by offering them cryptocurrency income in exchange for data labelling and validation.
Once a worker labels a data point on the Dbrain platform, multiple validations are performed on this work result by a random selection of labellers. These validators reproduce the calculations/ work done by the original labeller to confirm the correctness of the completed work task. If a majority of validators find the task result satisfactory - the original worker receives a high rating and a payment into her Ethereum wallet. On the other hand, if the task result is found unsatisfactory then the original worker gets a low rating and no payment is made.
While this system ensures that workers have the right incentive to deliver high-quality work, SPOCK adds further incentives for validators as well. Validators who approve a bad result are punished with a significantly reduced rating. But it also encourages conscientious validators to be suspicious by giving them a higher rating when they are right. This system ensures that validators are discouraged from accepting wrong results.
The system ensures that the Nash equilibrium for the system is such that both workers and validators do not submit work results at random. The strategy that maximizes pay-off for them is the one where they submit and accept only the correct work result
With SPOCK protocol, Dbrain has managed to solve a problem that plagued the crowdwork industry for years. At the same time, it has managed to significantly lower the cost of training an AI application. As of now, AI is out of reach for all but the wealthiest of the companies - smaller companies who can come up with use cases and algorithms that can push the state-of-the-art to new limits are unable to execute as high-quality datasets are out of their reach. Even large players like Admiral were unable to release an AI-driven app to generate auto insurance quote as Facebook refused to grant them access to user data. SPOCK is set to revolutionize the AI space by allowing even small players to train their applications on the best possible dataset.
With the Dbrain coin issue, you have a chance to participate in this revolution and stay ahead of the curve.
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