6 ms·

Not sure I would call this "help". These workers were subjected to the most vile and graphic depictions of sexual abuse content imaginable for next to nothing.

Not sure I would call this "help". These workers were subjected to the most vile and graphic depictions of sexual abuse content imaginable for next to nothing. This whole thing makes OpenAI seem evil if you ask me. Just another company exploiting people who are already being exploited. It's depressing.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
danuker 4y ago
I suspect the most vile and graphic content was confidently classified by the AI. The difficult part, where you'd get the most out of human labeling of data, is the grey area where the models diverge or are uncertain.
- replwoacause 4y ago
  Sorry but did you read the article? There were some clear examples in which the workers were subjected to this content. "That month, Sama began pilot work for a separate project for OpenAI: collecting sexual and violent images—some of them illegal under U.S. law—to deliver to OpenAI" "Sama delivered OpenAI a sample batch of 1,400 images. Some of those images were categorized as “C4”—OpenAI’s internal label denoting child sexual abuse—according to the document. Also included in the batch were “C3” images (including bestiality, rape, and sexual slavery,) and “V3” images depicting graphic detail of death, violence or serious physical injury, according to the billing document."
judge2020 4y ago
> for next to nothing. The point of the OP comment is that it's not "next to nothing". The cost of living differs from place to place and a small amount of USD can be worth a _lot_ in many developing nations.
Mtinie 4y ago
> These workers were subjected to the most vile and graphic depictions of sexual abuse content imaginable for next to nothing. Let’s imagine an alternative timeline where OpenAI pays $200/hr for this service. At that price point is it still exploitive? Is it ever appropriate or ethical to ask humans to voluntarily subject themselves to traumatic experiences in exchange for compensation? I’m still processing my own thoughts on this topic so I’m curious to learn about other viewpoints.
- bakuninsbart 4y ago
  A couple of years ago I seriously considered joining the federal police department in charge of dealing with internet crime here in Germany, so I've thought quite a bit about this topic. Basically, it is a job that needs to be done in society, but one that is torturous, and can leave you with long-term or permanent problems. In essence though, it is not fundamentally different in the way a coal miner would jeopardize their physical health, just with mental health instead. This risk/possible damage should be rewarded with a higher wage, and adequate measures should be put in place to minimize the possible damage, eg. in the case of content moderation with access to therapy and only exposing employees to short intervals of traumatic content. This is of course how things should be, in reality coal miners working environments only reached a decent level through unions and a long fight for better rights. Content moderators are not paid well anywhere either.
- falcolas 4y ago
  > At that price point is it still exploitive? My belief: When you have a legitimate choice of your place of employment, and all of the opportunities will let you live your definition of a comfortable life, that's when it's no longer exploitative. So many times - especially for poor folks - there is no meaningful choice. "I do this or I don't have a place to live." "I hold two jobs so I can feed my child."
  - Sebb767 4y ago
    > My belief: When you have a legitimate choice of your place of employment, and all of the opportunities will let you live your definition of a comfortable life, that's when it's no longer exploitative. By that argument, paying 200$ an hour would be much more exploitative. This would be like landing a job paying $6 million a year in the US; it would be insane to quit such an opportunity, especially since every other opportunity is basically poverty (not even in comparison). Following this logic, it's 'graceful' to only pay 2$/h, since that makes them equal to the other opportunities and therefore not exploitative (while still paying reasonably well). Effectively, it seems like you're calling OpenAI exploitative based on factors they can't change.
lolinder 4y ago
It's kind of insulting to tell someone that you know better than they do what's good for them. A Kenyan has told you that this job pays substantially better than average and that they wish more companies would make such jobs available, and your response is "no, you're wrong, this job pays too little". On what basis do you make that claim? What makes you better qualified than OP to comment on conditions in Kenya?
- AlexandrB 4y ago
  Fair point. But this is also the exact problem with allowing a small number of individuals to accrue massive wealth by arbitraging labor costs like this. It doesn't matter how much philanthropy Bill Gates engages in, he doesn't understand the needs of the poor better than they do. Instead of having this elaborate, inefficient system of funnelling money to first world billionaires and then having them (maybe) send some of it back to the developing world, wouldn't it be better if these workers were just paid better in the first place?
  - lolinder 4y ago
    In theory, yes, but at some wage level it wouldn't make sense to choose Kenya over India. At another threshold it wouldn't make sense to choose India over the US. There is overhead to sending jobs to poor, unstable countries in timezones far from headquarters. If we insist that everyone, worldwide should be paid the same wages we are in the US, what incentive do companies have for not just hiring locally and avoiding those costs? If we step it back and say "okay, you should at least pay what you would in India", then why not just hire in India, which is a far more predictable environment than Kenya?
- supriyo-biswas 4y ago
  The job pays too little based on the fact that it can leave the "employees" traumatized and scarred for life. But it does not take away from the fact that it can negatively affect the employees in an adverse way long term, and takes advantage of poor people to give them an objectively bad deal based on an information asymmetry where the person in question might not know that they have to read graphic descriptions of bestiality and pedophilia.
Ombudsman 4y ago
You also have to realise most lot of people here are not sheltered. We've experienced post election violence first hand in 2008, tribes killing other tribes, we also have a culture of burning petty thieves alive. We experience violence first hand. I don't think violent text is going to affect anyone the way you think it is.
- replwoacause 4y ago
  A lot of people aren't sheltered, but it doesn't mean they should be required to do traumatic work for little pay. Also, it was more than looking at violent text. Just because the people there already face hardships that may be greater than looking at graphic text and imagery doesn't mean the world should just pile on because their daily lives are already bad. That just makes a bad situation even worse.
  - zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
    How is reading text traumatic work?
    - replwoacause 4y ago
      Sounds like you haven't read the article either. It was more than just reading text but the text was traumatic too: "One Sama worker tasked with reading and labeling text for OpenAI told TIME he suffered from recurring visions after reading a graphic description of a man having sex with a dog in the presence of a young child. “That was torture,” he said. “You will read a number of statements like that all through the week. By the time it gets to Friday, you are disturbed from thinking through that picture.” The work’s traumatic nature eventually led Sama to cancel all its work for OpenAI in February 2022, eight months earlier than planned."
      - zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
        Did he have to read the entire thing? Just skim it and mark it as obscene. I don't understand what the big deal is.
eloff 4y ago
It’s a job that is safer and pays better than the alternatives. Don’t go imposing your view of the world on others and thinking you know what’s best for other adults. You won’t like it if I come into your life and do that, even if I were right. In this case is text. There’s no graphic depictions of anything. There could be foul, abusive, or racist language. But that’s much less difficult to deal with.
- nickthegreek 4y ago
  I was with you on the first part, but text can and does contain graphic deceptions.
  - eloff 4y ago
    Graphics descriptions, yes, depictions no.
- replwoacause 4y ago
  You sound like a few of the other commenters here who haven't read the article. Go and look at some of my other comments where I've quoted excerpts for others who couldn't be bothered to read before commenting.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
peteyPete 4y ago
Compare this to being a developer in Canada and working for a US company. Coworkers in the US make more as a base salary and pay less taxes than Canadians do even though the actual cost of living is not different. The argument there is its not about the value of the work delivered, its the cost of competing in a market. Say your average dev for that position makes 140k USD in the US, and in Canada, the average dev for that position makes 100k CAD (74.5k USD), most will pay that dev a modest amount over 100k CAD to attract the talent and compete in the local market, say 120k CAD, which is just below 90k USD. Is it abuse to pay them less than others who do the same work in the US? Most who do the work in Canada are probably in agreement that it would be nice to make the same amount, because who doesn't want more money, but in reality, its still a good salary in comparison to most other jobs locally. Its not exploitation if you're paying people higher than their local cost of living and higher than other local jobs. If you're just appalled about people being paid an amount of money that to YOU, based on your cost of living isn't fair because you'd want to make more, then be appalled at capitalism as a whole and how much work is being hired outside of company's originating countries. The production of almost everything globally is outsourced to locales where the cost to compete is lower than in the originating country.
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
Textbook example of socio-economic appropriation. That Karen should be identified ASAP and outed on Twitter.
gsatic 4y ago
More than anything else these companies call themselves high tech. They act as if they are doing revolutionary things. But under the surface its just armies of cheap labour cleaning up ever growing mountain ranges of shit.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

danuker 4y ago

I suspect the most vile and graphic content was confidently classified by the AI. The difficult part, where you'd get the most out of human labeling of data, is the grey area where the models diverge or are uncertain.

replwoacause 4y ago
Sorry but did you read the article? There were some clear examples in which the workers were subjected to this content. "That month, Sama began pilot work for a separate project for OpenAI: collecting sexual and violent images—some of them illegal under U.S. law—to deliver to OpenAI" "Sama delivered OpenAI a sample batch of 1,400 images. Some of those images were categorized as “C4”—OpenAI’s internal label denoting child sexual abuse—according to the document. Also included in the batch were “C3” images (including bestiality, rape, and sexual slavery,) and “V3” images depicting graphic detail of death, violence or serious physical injury, according to the billing document."

judge2020 4y ago

> for next to nothing. The point of the OP comment is that it's not "next to nothing". The cost of living differs from place to place and a small amount of USD can be worth a _lot_ in many developing nations.

Mtinie 4y ago

> These workers were subjected to the most vile and graphic depictions of sexual abuse content imaginable for next to nothing. Let’s imagine an alternative timeline where OpenAI pays $200/hr for this service. At that price point is it still exploitive? Is it ever appropriate or ethical to ask humans to voluntarily subject themselves to traumatic experiences in exchange for compensation? I’m still processing my own thoughts on this topic so I’m curious to learn about other viewpoints.

bakuninsbart 4y ago
A couple of years ago I seriously considered joining the federal police department in charge of dealing with internet crime here in Germany, so I've thought quite a bit about this topic. Basically, it is a job that needs to be done in society, but one that is torturous, and can leave you with long-term or permanent problems. In essence though, it is not fundamentally different in the way a coal miner would jeopardize their physical health, just with mental health instead. This risk/possible damage should be rewarded with a higher wage, and adequate measures should be put in place to minimize the possible damage, eg. in the case of content moderation with access to therapy and only exposing employees to short intervals of traumatic content. This is of course how things should be, in reality coal miners working environments only reached a decent level through unions and a long fight for better rights. Content moderators are not paid well anywhere either.
falcolas 4y ago
> At that price point is it still exploitive? My belief: When you have a legitimate choice of your place of employment, and all of the opportunities will let you live your definition of a comfortable life, that's when it's no longer exploitative. So many times - especially for poor folks - there is no meaningful choice. "I do this or I don't have a place to live." "I hold two jobs so I can feed my child."
- Sebb767 4y ago
  > My belief: When you have a legitimate choice of your place of employment, and all of the opportunities will let you live your definition of a comfortable life, that's when it's no longer exploitative. By that argument, paying 200$ an hour would be much more exploitative. This would be like landing a job paying $6 million a year in the US; it would be insane to quit such an opportunity, especially since every other opportunity is basically poverty (not even in comparison). Following this logic, it's 'graceful' to only pay 2$/h, since that makes them equal to the other opportunities and therefore not exploitative (while still paying reasonably well). Effectively, it seems like you're calling OpenAI exploitative based on factors they can't change.

lolinder 4y ago

It's kind of insulting to tell someone that you know better than they do what's good for them. A Kenyan has told you that this job pays substantially better than average and that they wish more companies would make such jobs available, and your response is "no, you're wrong, this job pays too little". On what basis do you make that claim? What makes you better qualified than OP to comment on conditions in Kenya?

AlexandrB 4y ago
Fair point. But this is also the exact problem with allowing a small number of individuals to accrue massive wealth by arbitraging labor costs like this. It doesn't matter how much philanthropy Bill Gates engages in, he doesn't understand the needs of the poor better than they do. Instead of having this elaborate, inefficient system of funnelling money to first world billionaires and then having them (maybe) send some of it back to the developing world, wouldn't it be better if these workers were just paid better in the first place?
- lolinder 4y ago
  In theory, yes, but at some wage level it wouldn't make sense to choose Kenya over India. At another threshold it wouldn't make sense to choose India over the US. There is overhead to sending jobs to poor, unstable countries in timezones far from headquarters. If we insist that everyone, worldwide should be paid the same wages we are in the US, what incentive do companies have for not just hiring locally and avoiding those costs? If we step it back and say "okay, you should at least pay what you would in India", then why not just hire in India, which is a far more predictable environment than Kenya?
supriyo-biswas 4y ago
The job pays too little based on the fact that it can leave the "employees" traumatized and scarred for life. But it does not take away from the fact that it can negatively affect the employees in an adverse way long term, and takes advantage of poor people to give them an objectively bad deal based on an information asymmetry where the person in question might not know that they have to read graphic descriptions of bestiality and pedophilia.

Ombudsman 4y ago

You also have to realise most lot of people here are not sheltered. We've experienced post election violence first hand in 2008, tribes killing other tribes, we also have a culture of burning petty thieves alive. We experience violence first hand. I don't think violent text is going to affect anyone the way you think it is.

replwoacause 4y ago
A lot of people aren't sheltered, but it doesn't mean they should be required to do traumatic work for little pay. Also, it was more than looking at violent text. Just because the people there already face hardships that may be greater than looking at graphic text and imagery doesn't mean the world should just pile on because their daily lives are already bad. That just makes a bad situation even worse.
- zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
  How is reading text traumatic work?
  - replwoacause 4y ago
    Sounds like you haven't read the article either. It was more than just reading text but the text was traumatic too: "One Sama worker tasked with reading and labeling text for OpenAI told TIME he suffered from recurring visions after reading a graphic description of a man having sex with a dog in the presence of a young child. “That was torture,” he said. “You will read a number of statements like that all through the week. By the time it gets to Friday, you are disturbed from thinking through that picture.” The work’s traumatic nature eventually led Sama to cancel all its work for OpenAI in February 2022, eight months earlier than planned."
    - zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
      Did he have to read the entire thing? Just skim it and mark it as obscene. I don't understand what the big deal is.

eloff 4y ago

It’s a job that is safer and pays better than the alternatives. Don’t go imposing your view of the world on others and thinking you know what’s best for other adults. You won’t like it if I come into your life and do that, even if I were right. In this case is text. There’s no graphic depictions of anything. There could be foul, abusive, or racist language. But that’s much less difficult to deal with.

nickthegreek 4y ago
I was with you on the first part, but text can and does contain graphic deceptions.
- eloff 4y ago
  Graphics descriptions, yes, depictions no.
replwoacause 4y ago
You sound like a few of the other commenters here who haven't read the article. Go and look at some of my other comments where I've quoted excerpts for others who couldn't be bothered to read before commenting.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

peteyPete 4y ago

Compare this to being a developer in Canada and working for a US company. Coworkers in the US make more as a base salary and pay less taxes than Canadians do even though the actual cost of living is not different. The argument there is its not about the value of the work delivered, its the cost of competing in a market. Say your average dev for that position makes 140k USD in the US, and in Canada, the average dev for that position makes 100k CAD (74.5k USD), most will pay that dev a modest amount over 100k CAD to attract the talent and compete in the local market, say 120k CAD, which is just below 90k USD. Is it abuse to pay them less than others who do the same work in the US? Most who do the work in Canada are probably in agreement that it would be nice to make the same amount, because who doesn't want more money, but in reality, its still a good salary in comparison to most other jobs locally. Its not exploitation if you're paying people higher than their local cost of living and higher than other local jobs. If you're just appalled about people being paid an amount of money that to YOU, based on your cost of living isn't fair because you'd want to make more, then be appalled at capitalism as a whole and how much work is being hired outside of company's originating countries. The production of almost everything globally is outsourced to locales where the cost to compete is lower than in the originating country.

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago

Textbook example of socio-economic appropriation. That Karen should be identified ASAP and outed on Twitter.

gsatic 4y ago

More than anything else these companies call themselves high tech. They act as if they are doing revolutionary things. But under the surface its just armies of cheap labour cleaning up ever growing mountain ranges of shit.