The manual touch behind and inside that automation

Automizing tasks, especially repetitive ones, makes sense and saves time. And money? As long as the task stays within pre-defined parameters and the cost of that automatization is less than the manual execution it saves money. But only a slight deviation such as an out of the ordinary handwriting can drive the automatic process into a pothole. Then what's under the hood of an app takes on a human touch/detour and travels to Asia. There, a Mechanical Turk, make that Indian, adds his cheap savvy to keep the appearance of automatization alive by deciphering that odd handwriting and is royally remunerated with pennies, make that a couple of Rupees.

Here is what Rochelle LaPlante discovered when she saw a stranger's UBER receipt posted.

Strangers are looking at your data for pennies

A bunch of apps are uploading detailed receipts for transcription by remote workers.

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, Rochelle LaPlante stumbled across a stranger’s Uber receipt as part of a task posted on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, a remote labor marketplace where anyone can sign up to complete tasks for a few cents each.

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So much about automation that will eat away jobs and bring the 2-hour workday soon and those strange emails in your inbox.