AI projects like OpenAI’s ChatGPT draw some of their knowledge from the lowest-paid workers in the tech industry – contractors in impoverished countries were often paid miniature sums to tweak chatbots and label images. As of Wednesday, 97 African workers involved in artificial intelligence training or online content moderation for companies such as Meta and OpenAI published an open letter to President Biden, demanding that U.S. tech companies end the “systemic exploitation and exploitation of African workers.”
Most of the letter’s signatories come from Kenya, a technology outsourcing hub whose president is William Ruto. is visiting the USA this week. Employees say the practices of companies such as Meta, OpenAI and data provider Scale AI “amount to modern-day slavery.” The companies did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The letter said a typical working day for African tech contractors includes “watching murder and decapitation, child abuse and rape, pornography and bestiality, often for more than 8 hours a day.” They say pay is often less than $2 an hour and workers often suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, well documented spend among content moderators around the world.
The letter’s signatories say their work includes reviewing content on platforms like Facebook, TikTok and Instagram, as well as tagging photos and training chatbot responses for companies like OpenAI that are developing generative artificial intelligence technology. The workers are organized in the African Content Moderators Union, the first content moderators’ union on the continent, and in a group founded by laid-off workers who previously trained artificial intelligence technology for companies such as Scale AI, which sells datasets and data tagging services to clients including OpenAI , Meta and the US military. There was a letter published on the website British activist group Foxglove, which promotes tech workers unions and fair technology.
According to the letter and news reports, Scale AI suddenly banned people in March Kenya, Nigeria and Pakistan from working on Remotasks, a Scale AI platform for contract work. The letter said these employees were dismissed without notice and “are owed significant amounts of unpaid wages.”
“When Remotask closed, it took our livelihoods and food out of the kitchen,” says Joan Kinyua, a member of a group of former Remotask employees, in a statement to WIRED. “But Scale AI, the large company that runs the platform, gets away with it because it is based in San Francisco.”
Although the Biden administration he often described your approach to labor policy How “employee-focused” The African workers’ letter argued that this did not apply to them, stating that “we are treated as disposable.”
“You have the power to end our exploitation by American companies, clean up our work, and ensure our dignity and fair working conditions,” the letter reads. “You can make sure that Kenyans, not just Americans, have good jobs too.”
In recent years, technology contractors in Kenya have filed lawsuits alleging that outsourcing companies and their U.S. clients, such as Meta, treated workers illegally. Wednesday’s letter demands that Biden make sure U.S. tech companies work with foreign tech workers, comply with local regulations and end union-busting practices. It also suggests that tech companies “be held accountable in U.S. courts for their unlawful actions on board, particularly human and labor rights violations.”
The letter arrives just over a year after 150 employees formed the African Content Moderators Association. Meta dismissed immediately all of Kenya’s nearly 300 content moderators, staff say, effectively breaking up a fledgling relationship. The company is currently facing three lawsuits filed by over 180 Kenyan workersdemanding more humane working conditions, freedom to organize and payment of unpaid wages.
“Everyone wants to see more jobs in Kenya,” says Kauna Malgwi, a member of the steering committee of the African Union of Content Moderators. – But not at any cost. All we are asking for is decent, well-paid work that is unthreatening.”