When has a human-based service replaced an automated one?

Question

I'm looking for examples where a human-based service replaced an automated one. For example, machine translation (although suboptimal in quality) largely replaced human translation in many areas -- can anyone think of where the opposite has occurred (especially with regard to today's industry)?

Edit: Before you downvote because this doesn't have the keyword C++, my reasoning is that programmers invariably create these technologies, and programmers are the ones who are either 1) displaced by the revival of human service, or 2) asked to somehow integrate the human element in a service. When there are questions like this one, it doesn't make sense to downvote this (unless you downvoted that, too).

Thanks!

Answer 1

reCaptcha is, I think, a direct counter-example to your machine translation example (since it's a form of visual translation, so to speak),

perhaps google image labeller counts

I recall something about yahoo running a "humans do simple tasks online for you cheaply, in the place of cpu cycles" scheme.

Crowdsourcing in general might be something similar to what you're thinking of.

Answer 2

It is an unlikely situation because for a machine to have been given the responsibility in the first place you would expect it to have been sufficiently good/cheap/etc at the task. So for it to then be replaced by a human, the human approach would need to have some how got better or cheaper at a faster rate than the technology driven one.

That's not to say that there isn't an example of this of course. I think it is an interesting question.

Answer 3

I've heard there are CAPTCHA-resolving centers in India. That may be a lie though.

Answer 4

Actually, I have an interesting example of this.

A few years ago I was working for a company writing a Dive School System for a Hotel in Sharm El Sheikh (in Egypt) along with a new "front of house" system. We were trying to come up with a fast check-in system for checking in an entire busload of divers arriving from the airport, the thing is, in Egypt labor is very very cheap, and the end it was more costly to do this with a computer system, than to continue with the old manual system of simply having 15-20 staff doing the checking in.

Answer 5

Perhaps not the most exciting examples, but certainly among the most common--used everyday by pretty much everyone. Non-trivial as well.

1. Electronic Stability Control (braking-steering control in many (most?) automobiles

2. Auto-focus in some digital cameras.