Toloka AI Evaluation & Its Top Alternatives for RLHF in 2023

As the interest in RLHF (reinforcement learning from human feedback) grows (Figure 1), more companies leverage or plan to leverage the RLHF approach in developing AI-powered solutions such as generative AI, LLMs (large language models), etc.

As most companies outsource AI development, if your business also wishes to work with an RLHF partner like Toloka AI, our research can guide you.

This article evaluates the company Toloka AI and provides alternatives to offer business leaders with multiple options for their RLHF needs.

Figure 1. Global interest in RLHF

What is Toloka AI?

Toloka AI was launched by Yandex in 2014 and offers a crowdsourcing platform for services surrounding AI and machine learning development. It claims to provide scalable human-generated data solutions. Toloka allows companies and researchers to break down large tasks into micro-tasks that can be distributed to its global network of contributors, who then complete the tasks in exchange for compensation.

What are Toloka AI’s offerings?

Here are some of its key offerings:

• RLHF:  Offers RLHF service for training large language models and other AI models.
• Data labeling and annotation: Provides training data for machine learning models, including image annotation, text labeling, and data classification.
• Data collection: Gathers data in multiple languages and from different geographies.
• Data cleaning and enrichment: Cleans and improves existing datasets, including tasks like removing duplicates and correcting errors.
• Data validation: Distributes validation tasks to multiple individuals to improve the dataset’s accuracy and reliability.

User ratings

In this section, we compile the user ratings of Toloka AI from third-party review platforms such as  G2, Trustpilot, Capterra, etc. 

• Trustpilot: 2.8 / 5 from 1 review
• Capterra: 4.0 / 5 from 1 review

Since Toloka AI has few online reviews, it is not possible to derive many conclusions about its service from reviews. One observation is that the service does not seem to be popular.

Comparison of the top alternatives of Toloka AI

This section offers a table comparing the top alternatives of Toloka AI.

Table 1. Toloka AI alternatives comparison based on market presence

Table 2. Toloka AI alternatives comparison based on features

How we selected the alternatives

• We chose the service providers that claim to offer RLHF as a service on a crowdsourcing platform.
• Our comparison criteria include:
  • Market presence:
    • Crowd size: The size of the network of contributors working with the company
    • Share of customers among top 5 buyers: From the top 5 tech giants in the U.S. (Google, Apple, Samsung, Microsoft, Meta)
    • Customer reviews: Offers an external view of the company’s performance
  • Features
    • If the company offers a mobile application
    • If the company offers API capabilities
    • We evaluated data protection through the ISO 27001 certification and GDPR compliance
    • We also considered if the companies have a code of conduct in place.

Observations from the comparison tables

This section discusses the key observations from the alternatives comparison.

1. Crowd size

We identified that Toloka AI’s network of contributors or crowd size is smaller than its alternatives, such as Clickworker and Appen, and larger than Prolific. 

RLHF requires an extensive amount of human input, and a large network of contributors can offer a higher level of diversity to the project.

2. Share of customers among top buyers

Having large-scale customers indicates a higher level of reliability on the RLHF service provider’s part. From the alternatives, Toloka AI has the smaller share of customers among the top 5 tech giants in the U.S. 

3. Customer reviews

In terms of user ratings and reviews, Toloka AI has the worst average among its alternatives. However, the data found on Toloka AI, for this criterion was limited.

4. Features availability

In terms of features, Toloka AI’s checked all the boxes, similar to Clickworker and Appen.

Limitations

• For the comparison, we relied completely on the publicly available and verifiable data.
• The criteria used to compare the alternatives will be refined as the market, and our understanding of the market evolves.
• The statements of the company’s capabilities were not verified. A company is assumed to offer a capability if that capability is highlighted in its product page or case studies as of Aug/2023.
• The capabilities of the RLHF service providers were not quantitatively measured. We checked if capabilities were offered or not. In a benchmarking exercise with products, quantitative metrics can be introduced.

Transparency statement

AIMultiple serves numerous emerging tech companies, including Clickworker.

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