Exposing the AI Industry: 7 Warnings to Gig Workers from My Experience
Are AI companies exploiting freelancers for their expertise?
As an editor, I love to work with indie authors who are passionate about their stories but can’t necessarily pay the big bucks to have their work edited by professionals associated with fancy publishing houses. However, because I work with my clients to make my services affordable for their means, my means to pay my own bills sometimes suffer. So, when I got an offer from a company* to work part-time, flexible hours training AI models at an hourly rate higher than I’ve ever been paid before, I thought it was a perfect solution to my dilemma.
I was in for some unpleasant surprises. These are the lessons I learned, and my warnings, for those considering gig work for AI companies:
Make sure you are filling a role that is right for you.
The work I was doing with these companies utilized my editing skills. I sorted through and rated the writing of human workers in massive data sets which were being fed into AI models, then analyzed how the models responded. But I think I would have pulled my hair out if I was one of the human writers generating the input content.
There are several roles AI training companies hire for. They typically cast a wide net and hire thousands if not tens of thousands of freelancers in one batch, looking for experts on everything from different languages to various fields of study. This quantity of hires creates a logistical nightmare for admins trying to sort everyone into the correct work groups. Sometimes people were left waiting weeks or even months to be moved into the work pod they should have been in.
Make sure the pay rate balances out the headache you will inevitably go through.
Along with field and linguistic experts, AI companies also look for people who are willing to jump at any opportunity to “earn money with flexible hours from the comfort of your home!” then pay them next to nothing to spit out unending random data for chatbots to interact with.
When you apply to AI companies, be conscious of what the work you are signing up to be paid for entails. Be clear about your expertise. Be aware that getting hired for some of the “worker bee” positions lower on the totem pole will not amount to a liveable wage and you will have to look at picking up other part-time work.
Be ready to stay flexible.
Even though these job postings advertise that you can choose your own hours, you will not always have work available to do. Projects from high-profile clients come quickly and go even quicker. You may be inundated with work one day, then be left on “Empty Queue” for weeks. Eventually, you will feel stuck waiting in front of your computer to snag the sporadic bouts of work that do come in before other freelancers snap it up. (Pro tip: the work will always show up at the most inconvenient time for you. Or as soon as you give up waiting and walk away from your computer to get on with your life). The inconsistent or even non-existent flow of work is a huge issue that every AI training company struggles to manage, regardless of how many projects they have in the pipeline.
Once you do get a project with work to do, instructions tend to change nearly on the daily. And often, your admins won’t bother to tell you about the changes. Trying to figure out the newest workflow or guidelines on your own in order to avoid getting flagged for quality is endlessly frustrating. It became a joke between me and my co-workers that no one ever knew what was going on and the admins were just making up stuff to tell us based on the BS that the manic project managers handed down.
Worst case scenario, you could get stuck in a cycle of Empty Queue, then having to do new trainings that you may or may not be paid for on hypothetical new projects that never actually show up.
Be prepared to run into a myriad of technical issues.
I don’t know what it is, but every single AI company I know of has the worst luck with technical issues. You have to submit a help desk ticket for everything. The tech teams are usually never responsive. It’s a whole mess. More headache fuel.
Document EVERYTHING. And have your labor department’s phone number handy, just in case.
More pay cycles than not I ended up having to fight for my fair wages to be released. Even on platforms where the company’s server tracked your hours spent working, sometimes the pay they calculated didn’t match up with the actual amount of hours worked.
I tend to give the benefit of the doubt in everything, so I assume these issues were due to the logistics of the overwhelming number of workers and/or the rampant technical problems and not due to malice. Either way, these companies’ contract agreements are extensive and their loopholes always tend to work in their favor. Track your own work hours. Record all your meetings and interviews. Get as much in writing as you can. Read the documents you sign thoroughly. Screenshot messages with your admins.
The last straw for me with one of these companies was when the entire team I was working with got terminated and ghosted by our admins. A project we were working on had gotten canceled or moved on-site, but we were given zero warning from the “big guys” that made the decision. Despite having been verbally told by the person who hired us that we were in a long-term position regardless of projects coming and going, our entire pod was axed. At that point, there was a complete breakdown of communication with our project managers and there was nothing anyone could do about it. Our whole Slack channel was deleted, so we didn’t have access to any proof of our wrongful termination. The paid time off and benefits we had earned were frozen in the third-party payroll company. Some of us who threatened enough legal action and called the HR line every day for weeks managed to get a severance package, but it came with terms and conditions to shut us up that we had to sign. This is the most extreme case I am currently aware of, but versions of this abuse of workers are all too common among AI companies.
Don’t be like me and give the benefit of the doubt. Expect that you will be screwed over and know what you will do in case it happens.
Avoid getting hired through talent sites such as Upwork or Hubstaff.
In my experience, getting hired through Upwork complicated all of the other issues I had to work through ten-fold. A third party means that technical and pay issues can more easily get passed off as the other company’s problem, and you will be left with one more person to chase down for answers who inevitably won’t respond to your messages.
The whole deal left a bad taste in my mouth for Upwork Enterprise Clients in general. Maybe there are some decent ones out there. But I would say believe the low ratings–don’t go for these offers unless you’re desperate.
My Verdict: do not depend on AI training work to pay your bills.
This is a basic rule that every freelancer should live by, but it bears reiterating: never keep all your eggs in one basket. Don’t depend on only one job to pay your monthly rent, because chances are–ESPECIALLY in the AI industry–you will end up in a bind and be left stressing about getting evicted.
During the year I was working for AI training companies, I was also working for a couple long-term clients on their short stories and manuscripts. I also nannied 3 days a week. Other freelancers who were working on these AI projects with me who I got to know were teaching zumba classes and working with product-testing websites, or had jobs coaching sports teams or teaching online. These are just some examples on the endless list of options out there. Hustle with whatever opportunities work for you.
The gig work that AI training companies present sounds amazing. For me, it was a great option for a season. I might go back to it at some point if the right offer comes along. But I’ll be bearing these lessons in mind if I do.
A Note to AI companies:
Be very careful how you treat the freelancers you hire. More and more of us are getting together and realizing that you pulled us in for our expertise, then screwed us over and discarded us. If you keep using and abusing hordes of freelancers just because you can get away with it, before you know it you will have less and less high-quality workers willing to contribute to your projects. And that means the entirety of the AI industry is poised to plummet in quality.
Want the inside scoop on more companies or industries that offer work to freelancers? Need to know if an offer that sounds too good to be true, is? Or do YOU have an experience that came with lessons or warnings you can share with others? Follow OBA’s free newsletter and give us the skinny!
*Disclaimer: The name of the AI companies I worked for are omitted for legal reasons, based on the contracts I was forced to sign in order for my earned wages to be released to me.
