‘Overworked, underpaid’ humans train Google’s AI

I'm a contractor for one of these companies. It pays okay ($45+/hour) if you can pass qualifications for your area of expertise but the work isn't steady and communication is non-existent. The coding qualifications I did were difficult FAANG algorithm analysis questions. The work has definitely gotten harder over the last year and often says we need to come up with Masters/PhD level work or problems that someone with 5+ years of experience in a field would have difficulty solving. I wish I had a regular job but I live in rural North Carolina and remote work is hard to come by.

Is something stronger than your wish to get a regular job tying you to where you currently live?

I just want to note that asking this question implies an openness to one’s personal affairs that may not be appropriate in an anonymous, public setting. A person offering context and insight to a topic is not necessarily an invitation to an for more personal contexts and insights.

I understand it's personal, but I also recognize they went out of their way to bring it up. Some people, including me, are more willing to discuss things anonymously because it adds a layer of impersonality. This is just a discussion board. If OP doesn't answer, that's ok. I don't ever think I'm entitled a response.

I wouldn't mind this work at that pay, being particularly strong in leetcode and in CS itself.

How do I join?

hmm, this feels like ScaleAI

I only started seriously looking for work again about a month ago. I'd like to stay in this area for a few reasons but I would relocate if necessary. I worked remotely from 2015 until a layoff in late 2023 and this was the first thing I came across after that. It was okay for awhile and actually pretty interesting at first but the hours aren't reliable and there doesn't seem to be much opportunity for getting promoted.

It is a reasonable question that also emphasizes the composite cost of decisions.

Personally I would love to live in a more rural place, but until I am self sufficient enough, this is not an opportunity I am willing to take.

Look up Mercor, DataAnnotation.tech, and Outlier. You create a profile, upload a resume, and do some required tasks for each job posting they have. It may involve a combination of interviewing with an AI, doing a few trial tasks, and submitting a portfolio or Github profile.

> It pays okay ($45+/hour)

For reference, the median hourly wage is $27/hour.

https://nationalequityatlas.org/indicators/Wages_Median

About 75% of the job postings I see on Indeed and LinkedIn are for one of these places

This is like shouting "I am upset" on Twitter and getting more upset at people asking why.

If you don't want people to ask, don't mention it.

Yeah the hourly pay can be pretty good but I think what bothers most people is the unpredictable work availability. It can be great for weeks or longer, then suddenly it isn't, and not really any communication about when/if the projects will return. Overall I'm happy I found the gig but it isn't reliable full time income.

Gotta love how DataAnnotation has been blanketing Reddit with ads for "remote coding jobs," clearly trading on the ambiguity of "coding."

How often do encounter difficult content? Like gore, violence, hate, etc.? I would think prompts would keep that out of responses, is that naive of me?

The attractiveness of different wages really depends on what the job involves (working in the hot sun versus in an air conditioned room), whether hours are flexible, and whether you have to spend much time commuting to/from. It sounds like this is pretty good on the intangibles, so it really just comes down to whether the $/hr tradeoff makes sense.

Is it that bad? The person can not answer or keep it vague with "I have family here" or "I was raised here". They were the ones who decided to mention their state.

Reminds me of that South Park episode: "We want our privacy!!"

Weird thing to see downvoted. I’ve dropped my salary by $50k to maintain a better work-life balance once.

>The work has definitely gotten harder over the last year and often says we need to come up with Masters/PhD level work or problems that someone with 5+ years of experience in a field would have difficulty solving.

Many experts are holding out, and I don't blame them. Why would you want to train AI to replace your job?

For the paycheck? For many people, ideological concerns and years-out possible downsides are less important than putting food on the table.

> How often do encounter difficult content? Like gore, violence, hate, etc.?

Honest question: of course, everybody would prefer to work with "lovely" stuff, but I really have difficulties getting what people find so much difficult/hard about jobs where you encounter such content on a screen (the same holds for moderation jobs).

I would claim that I have seen the internet, and I guess many people of my generation have, too (just to be insanely clear: of course not the kind stuff that is hardcore criminal in basically all jurisdictions worldwide - I don't want to get more explicit here).

I wouldn't say I am blunted, but I do think I could handle this stuff without any serious problems as part of my job. I'd thus rather compare it in terms of emotional comfort with a toilet cleaner who sometimes also has to clean very filthy toilets - which is just an ordinary job that some people in society have to do.

Because while the fever dreams of capitalists do not always pan out you do always need a paycheck to make rent.

Alternative is someone else does it and now you neither have money or AI training.

It has never been a successful strategy to try and fight new technology. Never.

Jeez, the reading comprehension in the other replies is really bad. The "Why would you…" sentence is meant to support the observation that many experts are holding out and have no need to be involved with this training, not meant to ask why people like to get paid.

You may want to just find something else to do. The industry is not going to get any better going forward anyway. I’m a full-time web developer that works from home. But I’m joining the pipefitters union to do HVAC work. I need the life insurance, the health insurance, the better pay, the 401k, the 1.5 to 2X overtime pay, and the pension credits. Right now I’m only paid cash. I’m midcareer and this industry doesn’t want people like me. I’m a very reliable worker and have been for decades, but I am American and worse yet I’m white, have sex with a woman, and I expected a decent wage out of my chosen career. But it never really happened. I was always either low on pay or low on benefits. If you ever do acquire great pay and great benefits, you’re at the top of their spreadsheet to cut. And you’re never getting younger. They can always bring in someone who will work for less either from school or overseas. At my company, someone left that worked in Michigan, and they’re trying to replace him with someone from Mexico City. Already most of our coworkers are in India. It sounds like you’re in a similar situation. Other types of work can be good too. It’s nice to move around a little bit every day. Give the industry what they want. Let them have their cheap labor. They don’t want reliable employees anyway.

Same here. I'd love to get a full time coding job even if it meant a pay cut on hourly terms, but everything in my area pays much, much less and also I have a hard time even getting interviews. Guess I'll try to apply to this kind of role but full time, I think Amazon, Mistral and xAI are hiring.

Curious about attempting something like this in my area as well since I’m remote. Are you doing both or does one have to give way to the other eventually?

Also im seeing the same trend as you at my company, roles replaced overseas while people only focus on AI taking the jobs i think this is the more sinister thing happening quietly (by that i mean not getting much news coverage)

That would be great in a idealistic world where the establishment is not building a control grid using surveillance capitalism rather use the technology to benefit the anology world. In the current geo-political climate the question is do one want to get paid to build one's own digital prison?

Only training the experts should be doing is the ones that is self-hosted or through community of people one trust! Currently none of the big corp qualifies, not sure if the structure of big corp (that it is a person-hood) is capable of creating anything beneficial in the long run.

Why should the big companies benefit from your expertise to build centralize their control?

Except that lack of communication and reliability is, itself, an intangible, that onlinehost says this job is bad on.

Not surprised to hear that it’s the trend. It’s been going on for quite some time. I used to work for a very large Canadian multinational and HR told me they only hire US/Canadian lead developers. The rest were to be from Bulgaria. This was 10 years ago.

I’m in-progress on all of this but I’m offering my services to my current employer though my LLC for 20 hours a week at 3X the hourly rate of my old salary. Take it or leave it. They are losing their leverage for me with his move. I no longer need them, they can’t put me in the streets.

So not entirely leaving the industry but will take any work at or above the market rate. High rates mean less waste of my time, as it is more limited with starting a 2nd career.

For doing both, there’s no abusive overtime like in software because it’s double time pay. Which puts you at the pay rate of what would be $240,000 a year. No one wastes your time at that rate. You actually want overtime when it’s fairly compensated like that. You can do both.

It’s sad when you work towards something your entire life, both in school and professionally. And you’ve never done anything wrong. We played by the rules of our society, and our lives were stolen from us. As Steve Bannon famously said once, these American workers deserve reparations. If the situation is ever corrected, I don’t think it would be too hard to jump back in at that point full-time.