Human Computation and Divided Labor

Abstract

Modern crowdsourcing, as a form of processing information, has many precedents in history. It was commonly found in times when labor was inexpensive and employers desired flexible organizational structures. It was commonly used during the Great Depression and perhaps had its greatest influence in the Mathematical Tables Project. However, the theoretical underpinnings of crowdsourcing can be found a century earlier, at the start of the Victorian Age, in the writings of Charles Babbage.