OpenAi raised controversies for outsourcing data labelling to underpaid Kenyan labourers
OpenAi faced criticism for employing underpaid Kenyan workers through a company named Sama to label data including disturbing content, paying them less than $2 per hour. This practice has led to mental distress for workers handling violent and toxic material.
The development of artificial intelligence depends on a global army of low-paid workers rather than just a few highly skilled coders. Tasks like data labelling are crucial in optimising Artificial Intelligence’s performance.
To this end, TIME revealed that to make ChatGPT less toxic, OpenAI used outsourced Kenyan labourers earning less than $2 per hour through a company called Sama. Outsourced Kenyan workers were also subject to graphic sexual content to clean the platform of violence and hate speech. The labourers were sent text snippets for labelling content depicting graphic content like murder, suicide, torture, and other toxic content that left employees mentally scarred by the work.
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