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ChatGPT Is Powered by Human Contractors Getting Paid $15 per Hour

44 points by mikece 3y ago

version_five 3y ago
Discussed yesterday https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35853979 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35853979
anonylizard 3y ago
If OpenAI is rich enough to pay $15/h to Americans, rather than $2/h to Kenyans, that is a good thing. Data labelling is a gentler job than the other entry-level white collar job: call centers. I don't know how long manual labelling will last, but as AI explodes and every AI company hires legions of labelers, that could provide employment for the call center workers who will be displaced by AI.
- namaria 3y ago
  Call center jobs are not entry level, they are dead end jobs. There's a big difference.
pat64 3y ago
I hate Gizmodo. They really do find outrage in everything, seemingly getting off on it more than their readers. As others have said, paying 15 bucks an hour for Turk work rather than outsourcing it to Africa is a step up but even if they continued offshoring, the cost of living in other places is significantly lower and pay, surprise surprise, is significantly less (in saying that…2 dollars is a bit exploitative but that’s the market right or wrong).
petetnt 3y ago
Those who say that this is better than alternative x or y are missing the point. They could pay a premium for any label worker anywhere, whether it was $30 bucks per hour in America or $15 in Kenya, but they won't because the pursuit for AI, like most human endeavors, is driven primarily by human greed in the end.
- anon291 3y ago
  What's the greed? There are an incredible amount of people capable of doing data labeling. Obviously, the price for the service is low.
  - nebulousthree 3y ago
    Perhaps the workers should monetize the implicit factors of the job in order to get their true value. After all, labelling is one thing. Labelling correctly is another thing entirely. Labelling at high speed is another thing. Labelling in more than one language is yet another thing, and so on.
- prepend 3y ago
  Wages aren’t set arbitrarily, they are set by market rates. They could pay $30, but they’d rather have those people do more productive time than waste their skills labeling stuff. Paying skilled people to do unskilled work is a recipe for sadness and depression. Why not suggest they pay $200/hour. I mean OpenAI has the money, right? $15 is high pay to sit at a console and label stuff. People literally make the same for cooking burgers and most retail jobs pay less. And these jobs don’t require a lot of training or skill, that’s why they pay so low.
  - petetnt 3y ago
    ”They’d rather have” has nothing to do with though. They do it because they can and want to. Obviously those cooking burgers or working in retail would deserve to earn more but if even ”new”, ”revolutionary” companies won’t do it, there’s really no hope.
m3kw9 3y ago
I thought it’s a free labour market, if there is a huge supply the prices come down. Not sure what they expect?
jstarfish 3y ago
> A new report from NBC News shows that OpenAI, the startup behind ChatGPT, has been paying droves of U.S. contractors to assist it with the necessary task of data labelling—the process of training ChatGPT’s software to better respond to user requests. The compensation for this pivotal task? A scintillating $15 per hour. > In the case of OpenAI’s mod’s, the data labellers receive no benefits and are paid little more than what amounts to minimum wage in some states. Savreux is based in Kansas City, where the minimum wage is $7.25. Clever wordsmithing. "Scintillating"? "Truly a Dickensian tale of woe: the suffering knowledge worker eking out his meager existence, clicking a tiny button to sort text into bins for seeming-endless hours whilst earning the paltry wage of $15/hr-- a sum no less than twice the regional minimum wage, and ill-suited to address the medical needs inflicted upon him by the laborious demands of the overseers." This isn't skilled labor. McDonald's employees earn less, work more, and suffer regular injury.
- teachrdan 3y ago
  > McDonald's employees earn less, work more, and suffer regular injury. I'd file this under "Not even wrong." What does it matter that there are even more-exploited workers in the world? Does worker exploitation not matter as long as a North Korean farmer (or whoever) is earning less, working more, and suffering regular injury? ChatGPT and other AI technologies are marketing themselves as futuristic technologies that will revolutionize everything and utterly transform the economy, while also earning untold billions in the process. The fact that a crucial part of the labor is performed not by algorithms but by workers earning less than a living wage is a contradiction ChatGPT and its proponents need to reckon with. > wage of $15/hr-- a sum no less than twice the regional minimum wage Cost of living for a single person in a 1-bedroom apartment outside the city center is about $2200 a month. Guess what? After taxes, that's more than you earn working 40 hours a week at this job. The only thing your snarky comment proves is that the regional minimum wage is criminally low. https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/Kansas-City https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/Kansas-City
  - prepend 3y ago
    > Cost of living for a single person in a 1-bedroom apartment outside the city center is about $2200 a month. Guess what? Why would someone with only the skills of a labeled live alone and outside the city center? This person definitely needs roommates and living in a cheap place. Not everyone gets to life where they want. Especially if they make $15/hour. Especially since labelers are literally training their AI replacements and won’t have a job in the next few years. This isn’t a case of criminally low wages. This is a case of poor analysis and unrealistic expectations.
two_in_one 3y ago
There are many ways of saying the same thing. It would sound differently if they said how many jobs have been created. But then nobody would click.
Obsoleticus 3y ago
Why not get Open AI to do labeling for Chat GPT. It would do a pretty good job. Then get Chat GPT to do labeling for Open AI. You could collect 2x the salary of a labeler, and slowly degrade the performance of both bots, and nobody would be the wiser.

44 points by mikece 3y ago

Discussed yesterday https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35853979 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35853979

If OpenAI is rich enough to pay $15/h to Americans, rather than $2/h to Kenyans, that is a good thing. Data labelling is a gentler job than the other entry-level white collar job: call centers. I don't know how long manual labelling will last, but as AI explodes and every AI company hires legions of labelers, that could provide employment for the call center workers who will be displaced by AI.

namaria 3y ago
Call center jobs are not entry level, they are dead end jobs. There's a big difference.

pat64 3y ago

I hate Gizmodo. They really do find outrage in everything, seemingly getting off on it more than their readers. As others have said, paying 15 bucks an hour for Turk work rather than outsourcing it to Africa is a step up but even if they continued offshoring, the cost of living in other places is significantly lower and pay, surprise surprise, is significantly less (in saying that…2 dollars is a bit exploitative but that’s the market right or wrong).

petetnt 3y ago

Those who say that this is better than alternative x or y are missing the point. They could pay a premium for any label worker anywhere, whether it was $30 bucks per hour in America or $15 in Kenya, but they won't because the pursuit for AI, like most human endeavors, is driven primarily by human greed in the end.

anon291 3y ago
What's the greed? There are an incredible amount of people capable of doing data labeling. Obviously, the price for the service is low.
- nebulousthree 3y ago
  Perhaps the workers should monetize the implicit factors of the job in order to get their true value. After all, labelling is one thing. Labelling correctly is another thing entirely. Labelling at high speed is another thing. Labelling in more than one language is yet another thing, and so on.
prepend 3y ago
Wages aren’t set arbitrarily, they are set by market rates. They could pay $30, but they’d rather have those people do more productive time than waste their skills labeling stuff. Paying skilled people to do unskilled work is a recipe for sadness and depression. Why not suggest they pay $200/hour. I mean OpenAI has the money, right? $15 is high pay to sit at a console and label stuff. People literally make the same for cooking burgers and most retail jobs pay less. And these jobs don’t require a lot of training or skill, that’s why they pay so low.
- petetnt 3y ago
  ”They’d rather have” has nothing to do with though. They do it because they can and want to. Obviously those cooking burgers or working in retail would deserve to earn more but if even ”new”, ”revolutionary” companies won’t do it, there’s really no hope.

m3kw9 3y ago

I thought it’s a free labour market, if there is a huge supply the prices come down. Not sure what they expect?

jstarfish 3y ago

> A new report from NBC News shows that OpenAI, the startup behind ChatGPT, has been paying droves of U.S. contractors to assist it with the necessary task of data labelling—the process of training ChatGPT’s software to better respond to user requests. The compensation for this pivotal task? A scintillating $15 per hour. > In the case of OpenAI’s mod’s, the data labellers receive no benefits and are paid little more than what amounts to minimum wage in some states. Savreux is based in Kansas City, where the minimum wage is $7.25. Clever wordsmithing. "Scintillating"? "Truly a Dickensian tale of woe: the suffering knowledge worker eking out his meager existence, clicking a tiny button to sort text into bins for seeming-endless hours whilst earning the paltry wage of $15/hr-- a sum no less than twice the regional minimum wage, and ill-suited to address the medical needs inflicted upon him by the laborious demands of the overseers." This isn't skilled labor. McDonald's employees earn less, work more, and suffer regular injury.

teachrdan 3y ago
> McDonald's employees earn less, work more, and suffer regular injury. I'd file this under "Not even wrong." What does it matter that there are even more-exploited workers in the world? Does worker exploitation not matter as long as a North Korean farmer (or whoever) is earning less, working more, and suffering regular injury? ChatGPT and other AI technologies are marketing themselves as futuristic technologies that will revolutionize everything and utterly transform the economy, while also earning untold billions in the process. The fact that a crucial part of the labor is performed not by algorithms but by workers earning less than a living wage is a contradiction ChatGPT and its proponents need to reckon with. > wage of $15/hr-- a sum no less than twice the regional minimum wage Cost of living for a single person in a 1-bedroom apartment outside the city center is about $2200 a month. Guess what? After taxes, that's more than you earn working 40 hours a week at this job. The only thing your snarky comment proves is that the regional minimum wage is criminally low. https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/Kansas-City https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/Kansas-City
- prepend 3y ago
  > Cost of living for a single person in a 1-bedroom apartment outside the city center is about $2200 a month. Guess what? Why would someone with only the skills of a labeled live alone and outside the city center? This person definitely needs roommates and living in a cheap place. Not everyone gets to life where they want. Especially if they make $15/hour. Especially since labelers are literally training their AI replacements and won’t have a job in the next few years. This isn’t a case of criminally low wages. This is a case of poor analysis and unrealistic expectations.

two_in_one 3y ago

There are many ways of saying the same thing. It would sound differently if they said how many jobs have been created. But then nobody would click.

Obsoleticus 3y ago

Why not get Open AI to do labeling for Chat GPT. It would do a pretty good job. Then get Chat GPT to do labeling for Open AI. You could collect 2x the salary of a labeler, and slowly degrade the performance of both bots, and nobody would be the wiser.