I didn't think the leopards would unionise at MY face-eating company

May 2, 2023 9:14 AM

150 African Workers for ChatGPT, TikTok and Facebook Vote to Unionize at Landmark Nairobi Meeting:

More than 150 workers whose labor underpins the AI systems of Facebook, TikTok and ChatGPT gathered in Nairobi on Monday and pledged to establish the first African Content Moderators Union, in a move that could have significant consequences for the businesses of some of the world’s biggest tech companies.

The current and former workers, all employed by third party outsourcing companies, have provided content moderation services for AI tools used by Meta, Bytedance, and OpenAI—the respective owners of Facebook, TikTok and the breakout AI chatbot ChatGPT. Despite the mental toll of the work, which has left many content moderators suffering from PTSD, their jobs are some of the lowest-paid in the global tech industry, with some workers earning as little as $1.50 per hour.

posted by Pachylad (10 comments total)

Entirely aside from MeFi moderation, working in content on those sites must be a horror show.

I mean, yes, they work for awful companies, but this is one area where I feel like training software to spare humans this particular, soul-eroding task might be good.
posted by wenestvedt at 9:33 AM on May 2, 2023 [6 favorites]

Entirely aside from MeFi moderation, working in content on those sites must be a horror show.

We need to recognize “moderation done by underpaid labourers in developing countries” as straight up extractive resource colonialism, but the resources being extracted are mental health and psychological safety. I hope this is a step towards that.
posted by mhoye at 10:02 AM on May 2, 2023 [61 favorites]

Wow, this is amazing, good for them. And plus one to the above comment!
posted by joannemerriam at 10:10 AM on May 2, 2023 [4 favorites]

Good. This shit is going to make trillions and it’s built on the backs of impoverished and exploited people being forced to stare at the worst and most insipid our species has to offer all day. I hope they claw back every cent possible.
posted by Ryvar at 10:10 AM on May 2, 2023 [11 favorites]

I mean, yes, they work for awful companies, but this is one area where I feel like training software to spare humans this particular, soul-eroding task might be good.

At least in the case of OpenAI that's exactly what they're doing. To teach the AI that certain types of content are horrible and should never be seen by humans, actual humans sometimes need to look at it and tell the AI that those things are horrible. These workers are doing very important work that is extremely disturbing and getting paid almost nothing for it. A lot of AI tech is built on top of the work of tons of underpaid humans, but Silicon Valley pretends they don't exist because they don't live in the US/Europe.
posted by JZig at 10:39 AM on May 2, 2023 [18 favorites]

To teach the AI that certain types of content are horrible and should never be seen by humans, actual humans sometimes need to look at it and tell the AI that those things are horrible

The AI will never learn this, because of how much of what constitutes horrible is cultural and contextual.
posted by mhoye at 11:52 AM on May 2, 2023 [8 favorites]

Arise!
posted by eustatic at 11:59 AM on May 2, 2023

SOLIDARITY
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 2:06 PM on May 2, 2023 [5 favorites]

OH HELL YES, SOLIDARITY
posted by humbug at 3:25 PM on May 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

I feel like it's the faces unionizing for eating protections in this scenario?

Anyway. Realizing "wall-to-wall" union solidarity to everybody without walls no matter how fucked by globalism is the only chance we've all got, so is there a donation address for strike fund or organization?
posted by away for regrooving at 11:36 PM on May 2, 2023 [2 favorites]