‘Overworked, underpaid’ humans train Google’s AI

The title is biased, blaming Google for mistreating people and implying that Google's AI isn't smart, but the OP is worth reading, because it gives readers a sense of the labor and cost involved in providing AI models with human feedback, the HF in RLHF, to ensure they behave in ways acceptable to human beings, more aligned with human expectations, values, and preferences.

> to ensure the AI models are more aligned with human values and preferences.

And which are these universal human values and preferences ? Or are we talking about silicon valley's executives values ?

> Sawyer is one among the thousands of AI workers contracted for Google through Japanese conglomerate Hitachi’s GlobalLogic to rate and moderate the output of Google’s AI products...

Depends how you look at it. I think a brand like Google should vet a mere one level down the supply chain.

> to ensure the AI models are more aligned with human values and preferences.

to ensure the AI models are more aligned with Google's values and preferences.

FTFY

I had no idea Hitachi was also running software sweatshops.

I'm a big fan of cyberpunk dystopian fiction, but I still can't quite understand what you're alluding to here. Can you give an example value that google align the AI with that you think isn't a positive human value?

"Adtech is good. Adblockers are unnatural"

Their entire business model? Making search results worse to juice page impressions? Every dark pattern they use to juice subscriptions like every other SaaS company? Brand lock-in for Android? Paying Apple for prominent placement of their search engine in iOS? Anti-competitive practices in the Play store? Taking a massive cut of Play Store revenue from people actually making software?

Google Gemini 2.5 Pro actually has a quite nuanced reply when asked to consider this statement, including the following:

> "Massive privacy invasion: The core of modern adtech runs on tracking your behavior across different websites and apps. It collects vast amounts of personal data to build a detailed profile about your interests, habits, location, and more, often without your full understanding or consent."

RLHF (and its evolution, RLAIF) is actually used for more than setting "values and preferences". It's what makes AI models engage in recognizable behavior, as opposed to simply continuing a given text. It's how the "Chat" part of "ChatGPT" can be made to work in the first place.

Yes, and one more tweak: the values of Google or anyone paying Google to deliver their marketing or political messaging.

What is a "human value" and whose preferences?

How does all of that affect the desired outputs for their LLMs?

Google likes it when it can show you more ads, it is not positive human value.

It does not have to have anything ro do with cyberpunk. Corporations are not people, but if they were people, they would be powerful sociopaths. Their interests and anybody elses interests are not the same.

Well, it doesn’t say universal so it’s clearly going to be a specific set of human values and preferences. It’s obviously referring to the preferences of the humans who are footing the bill and who stand to profit from it. The extent to which those values happen to align with those of the eventual consumer of this product could potentially determine whether the aforementioned profits ever materialize.

Yes. I updated my comment to reflect as much. Thank you.

You'll see once they figure it out.

You don't boil the frog instantly. You first lobotomize it, by gaining its trust. Then you turn up the heat. See how YouTube went from Ads are optional to Adblockers are immoral.

Or, if they really figure it out, you’ll only feel it.

Isn't that mostly the fine-tuning phase? RLHF being cherry on top?