On August 26, 2026, Amazon made public its decision to discontinue its crowdsourcing platform, Mechanical Turk (MTurk), effective September 30, 2026. Since its inception in 2005, MTurk has been a global hub for part-time workers to engage in microtasks, including data labeling, audio and video transcription, and survey participation. It has played a pivotal role in facilitating the labeling of training data for artificial intelligence (AI) systems. However, with the advancement of AI auto-labeling technologies, the necessity for manual data labeling has diminished. Consequently, Amazon has chosen to shutter the platform, cease the distribution of new tasks, and progressively phase out account access and payment settlement functionalities. This decision is set to impact millions of registered workers across the globe, yet Amazon has remained tight-lipped regarding any potential alternative arrangements or transitional assistance.