5 ms·

Why Africa? Why not southern Wyoming?

by miroljub 2y ago

mensetmanusman 2y ago
It’s the openAI way.
- alwa 2y ago
  For context, OpenAI recently caught flak from the less substantial organs of the American press for outsourcing RLHF/safety/content moderation tasks to a small SF firm called Sama (surely coincidental, eh @sama?). Sama hired workers in Kenya, Uganda, and India and paid them well above prevailing local wages, but the work involved the usual unpleasantness that content moderators have to deal with. Much ballyhooing about “neo-colonialism” followed. [0] https://time.com/6247678/openai-chatgpt-kenya-workers/ https://time.com/6247678/openai-chatgpt-kenya-workers/
  - chx 2y ago
    I refuse the framing of tech bros exploiting African workers as "Much ballyhooing about neo-colonialism".
    - IncreasePosts 2y ago
      Offering locally competitive wages is exploiting? If a company is based in NYC, and has a branch in rural Ohio, are the Ohioans being exploited if they aren't paid as much as their NYC counterparts despite drastically reduced cost of living in rural Ohio?
      - Marsymars 2y ago
        Well... yes? If digital widget producers are worth $x to the company, and get paid 0.8x in one location and 0.4x in another location, I'm not sure why I'd regard that as anything other than exploitative. CoL isn't really related to the market value of labour for remote-capable jobs; it would be similarly exploitative if the company paid childfree people, vegetarians, and basement apartment dwellers less because of their drastically reduced cost of living. I could see a point for fairness if the salaries were scaled so that average post-CoL savings in different CoL areas were equal, particular within regions (e.g. a country) where people have freedom of movement.
        satvikpendem 2y ago
        > CoL isn't really related to the market value of labour for remote-capable jobs I mean, it is. Wages are a market, thus supply and demand applies. We are not in a socialist society where there is some inherent "exploitation" which is basically what you're talking about.
        Marsymars 2y ago
        Yes, I misspoke, the market value is different, but the actual, objectively measurable value to the company is not. That we're not in a socialist society is exactly the reason for any inherent exploitation. And like, I'm saying this as a pretty gung-ho capitalist.
        satvikpendem 2y ago
        Exploitation has a specific definition in socialist circles, one that many capitalists reject as being misleading at best and malicious at worst. Since we are not in a socialist society, we cannot use their definition of the term, which is what I'm saying you're using. Yes, there can be other types of exploitation in a capitalist society, but the one you're talking about is getting paid "unfair" wages when the only "fair" wage is what one can get via supply and demand. That you or others who live in different cost of living areas might feel slighted does not mean it is exploitation in the capitalist sense; people in a LCoL area may be happy to take a lower wage than a HCoL person, they would not feel exploited due to that.
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
        chx 2y ago
        "people in a LCoL area may be happy to take a lower wage than a HCoL person, they would not feel exploited due to that." good to know
    - Y_Y 2y ago
      Isn't this the classic problem with getting involved in poorer economies? The African workers are worse off than if they were treated as an average US worker, but better off than an average African worker, and definitely better off than if Sama has hired Americans instead.
    - Wytwwww 2y ago
      offering jobs well above prevailing local wages = exploiting I would assume you also believe that every single person working for a wage is also by definition exploiting regardless of where they are? Otherwise it would make very little sense...
      - stonogo 2y ago
        Offering jobs in areas with laxer worker protections is arguably exploitative because in most or all of america this sort of work comes with counseling, due to the horrific nature of some of the content to be moderated. I don't know offhand of OpenAI ensured this was available; if not, that's a substantial financial savings at a cost of human suffering, which fits some folks' definition of exploitation.
        alwa 2y ago
        If I remember correctly the labor protections sounded commensurate, at least in form, with American standards: counseling (for whatever it’s worth), attempting to restrict hiring to people over age 18 (although the journalists did interview a person who fraudulently used a relative’s ID to get hired at age 15), etc. I don’t know about the quality of those services. It might be that the company operates in a cruel trashy way. But if we call it a hypothetical, and stipulate that the company unilaterally extends worker protections approximately equal to American worker protections (and much more attractive than local protections), would that change the calculus? It’s the same difficult work wherever it’s done. But in one context, it pays a really attractive wage and reflects good working conditions compared to the other options available to the worker. In the home context, the same wages would not provide a remotely adequate standard of living, and the worker has better options and should probably take them. In that framework, isn’t it more humane to take the work where it does the most good for the people doing the job? For that matter, doesn’t it help raise the standards in the remote job market: when a company comes around that’s rich enough to offer workers the choice of a job with better protections, doesn’t that encourage local businesses to make their protections more attractive too?
theptip 2y ago
Quite obviously, minimum wage is many times higher in the US.
- nilamo 2y ago
  Minimum wage is not applicable for gig work. It would basically be the same business model as companies like https://rev.com https://rev.com, which can be <$1 per video transcribed.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > which can be <$1 per video transcribed The average wage in Nigeria is about $25 per day [1]. The fundamental difference between Wyoming and West Africa is cost of living. [1] https://www.timedoctor.com/blog/average-salary-in-nigeria/ https://www.timedoctor.com/blog/average-salary-in-nigeria/
    - nilamo 2y ago
      I fail to understand how that applies to what I said.
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > fail to understand how that applies to what I said "<$1 per video transcribed" may be an order of magnitude more expensive.
        nilamo 2y ago
        More expensive than what? And how does that relate to minimum wages? And how does that relate to minimum wages with respect to gig work?
        JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > More expensive than what? “The average wage in Nigeria is about $25 per day.” Wages in Southern Wyoming are more expensive than that. Gig or minimum is irrelevant. > how does that relate to minimum wages Wyoming is subject to the federal minimum wage. > how does that relate to minimum wages with respect to gig work? We’re comparing two numbers and observing one of them is bigger.
deleted 2y ago
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deleted 2y ago
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rolph 2y ago
the original chess playing Mechanical_turk was a fraudulent device, likely more at home proximal to the nigerian princes, than with wild west gypsy wagon snake oil peddlars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_turk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_turk
petsfed 2y ago
Do you not know anything about the economy of southern Wyoming? Extractive industry is such a job creator there that for decades now, e.g. McDonalds couldn't keep enough people on hand. Why would I work a shitty job for minimum wage, when I could work another, similarly shitty job, for 4 times that amount? Extractive industry is such a job creator in Wyoming that they actively resist e.g. renewable energy projects that would provide economic stability during inevitable bust years, because it challenges the concept of extractive industry, even as extractive industry generates the boom/bust cycle. Southern Wyoming doesn't even have fucking Uber, you really think they're starving for gig-sector jobs like this?
pipes 2y ago
Because racism!!! Not really, there have been quite a few stories recently about companies claiming to be AI powered when in fact they are using African workers to perform tasks. The Turk bit is just what Amazon called their platform for outsourcing crappy repetitive work, which is named after the famous mechanical Turk.

Why Africa? Why not southern Wyoming?

mensetmanusman 2y ago

It’s the openAI way.

alwa 2y ago
For context, OpenAI recently caught flak from the less substantial organs of the American press for outsourcing RLHF/safety/content moderation tasks to a small SF firm called Sama (surely coincidental, eh @sama?). Sama hired workers in Kenya, Uganda, and India and paid them well above prevailing local wages, but the work involved the usual unpleasantness that content moderators have to deal with. Much ballyhooing about “neo-colonialism” followed. [0] https://time.com/6247678/openai-chatgpt-kenya-workers/ https://time.com/6247678/openai-chatgpt-kenya-workers/
- chx 2y ago
  I refuse the framing of tech bros exploiting African workers as "Much ballyhooing about neo-colonialism".
  - IncreasePosts 2y ago
    Offering locally competitive wages is exploiting? If a company is based in NYC, and has a branch in rural Ohio, are the Ohioans being exploited if they aren't paid as much as their NYC counterparts despite drastically reduced cost of living in rural Ohio?
    - Marsymars 2y ago
      Well... yes? If digital widget producers are worth $x to the company, and get paid 0.8x in one location and 0.4x in another location, I'm not sure why I'd regard that as anything other than exploitative. CoL isn't really related to the market value of labour for remote-capable jobs; it would be similarly exploitative if the company paid childfree people, vegetarians, and basement apartment dwellers less because of their drastically reduced cost of living. I could see a point for fairness if the salaries were scaled so that average post-CoL savings in different CoL areas were equal, particular within regions (e.g. a country) where people have freedom of movement.
      - satvikpendem 2y ago
        > CoL isn't really related to the market value of labour for remote-capable jobs I mean, it is. Wages are a market, thus supply and demand applies. We are not in a socialist society where there is some inherent "exploitation" which is basically what you're talking about.
        Marsymars 2y ago
        Yes, I misspoke, the market value is different, but the actual, objectively measurable value to the company is not. That we're not in a socialist society is exactly the reason for any inherent exploitation. And like, I'm saying this as a pretty gung-ho capitalist.
        satvikpendem 2y ago
        Exploitation has a specific definition in socialist circles, one that many capitalists reject as being misleading at best and malicious at worst. Since we are not in a socialist society, we cannot use their definition of the term, which is what I'm saying you're using. Yes, there can be other types of exploitation in a capitalist society, but the one you're talking about is getting paid "unfair" wages when the only "fair" wage is what one can get via supply and demand. That you or others who live in different cost of living areas might feel slighted does not mean it is exploitation in the capitalist sense; people in a LCoL area may be happy to take a lower wage than a HCoL person, they would not feel exploited due to that.
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
        chx 2y ago
        "people in a LCoL area may be happy to take a lower wage than a HCoL person, they would not feel exploited due to that." good to know
  - Y_Y 2y ago
    Isn't this the classic problem with getting involved in poorer economies? The African workers are worse off than if they were treated as an average US worker, but better off than an average African worker, and definitely better off than if Sama has hired Americans instead.
  - Wytwwww 2y ago
    offering jobs well above prevailing local wages = exploiting I would assume you also believe that every single person working for a wage is also by definition exploiting regardless of where they are? Otherwise it would make very little sense...
    - stonogo 2y ago
      Offering jobs in areas with laxer worker protections is arguably exploitative because in most or all of america this sort of work comes with counseling, due to the horrific nature of some of the content to be moderated. I don't know offhand of OpenAI ensured this was available; if not, that's a substantial financial savings at a cost of human suffering, which fits some folks' definition of exploitation.
      - alwa 2y ago
        If I remember correctly the labor protections sounded commensurate, at least in form, with American standards: counseling (for whatever it’s worth), attempting to restrict hiring to people over age 18 (although the journalists did interview a person who fraudulently used a relative’s ID to get hired at age 15), etc. I don’t know about the quality of those services. It might be that the company operates in a cruel trashy way. But if we call it a hypothetical, and stipulate that the company unilaterally extends worker protections approximately equal to American worker protections (and much more attractive than local protections), would that change the calculus? It’s the same difficult work wherever it’s done. But in one context, it pays a really attractive wage and reflects good working conditions compared to the other options available to the worker. In the home context, the same wages would not provide a remotely adequate standard of living, and the worker has better options and should probably take them. In that framework, isn’t it more humane to take the work where it does the most good for the people doing the job? For that matter, doesn’t it help raise the standards in the remote job market: when a company comes around that’s rich enough to offer workers the choice of a job with better protections, doesn’t that encourage local businesses to make their protections more attractive too?

theptip 2y ago

Quite obviously, minimum wage is many times higher in the US.

nilamo 2y ago
Minimum wage is not applicable for gig work. It would basically be the same business model as companies like https://rev.com https://rev.com, which can be <$1 per video transcribed.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > which can be <$1 per video transcribed The average wage in Nigeria is about $25 per day [1]. The fundamental difference between Wyoming and West Africa is cost of living. [1] https://www.timedoctor.com/blog/average-salary-in-nigeria/ https://www.timedoctor.com/blog/average-salary-in-nigeria/
  - nilamo 2y ago
    I fail to understand how that applies to what I said.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > fail to understand how that applies to what I said "<$1 per video transcribed" may be an order of magnitude more expensive.
      - nilamo 2y ago
        More expensive than what? And how does that relate to minimum wages? And how does that relate to minimum wages with respect to gig work?
        JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > More expensive than what? “The average wage in Nigeria is about $25 per day.” Wages in Southern Wyoming are more expensive than that. Gig or minimum is irrelevant. > how does that relate to minimum wages Wyoming is subject to the federal minimum wage. > how does that relate to minimum wages with respect to gig work? We’re comparing two numbers and observing one of them is bigger.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

rolph 2y ago

the original chess playing Mechanical_turk was a fraudulent device, likely more at home proximal to the nigerian princes, than with wild west gypsy wagon snake oil peddlars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_turk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_turk

petsfed 2y ago

Do you not know anything about the economy of southern Wyoming? Extractive industry is such a job creator there that for decades now, e.g. McDonalds couldn't keep enough people on hand. Why would I work a shitty job for minimum wage, when I could work another, similarly shitty job, for 4 times that amount? Extractive industry is such a job creator in Wyoming that they actively resist e.g. renewable energy projects that would provide economic stability during inevitable bust years, because it challenges the concept of extractive industry, even as extractive industry generates the boom/bust cycle. Southern Wyoming doesn't even have fucking Uber, you really think they're starving for gig-sector jobs like this?

pipes 2y ago

Because racism!!! Not really, there have been quite a few stories recently about companies claiming to be AI powered when in fact they are using African workers to perform tasks. The Turk bit is just what Amazon called their platform for outsourcing crappy repetitive work, which is named after the famous mechanical Turk.