"[...] ChatGPT’s creator, OpenAI, is now reportedly in talks with investors to raise funds at a $29 billion valuation, including a potential $10 billion investment by Microsoft. That would make OpenAI, which was founded in San Francisco in 2015 with the aim of building superintelligent machines, o
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ne of the world’s most valuable AI companies. But the success story is not one of Silicon Valley genius alone. In its quest to make ChatGPT less toxic, OpenAI used outsourced Kenyan laborers earning less than $2 per hour, a TIME investigation has found. [...]
OpenAI’s outsourcing partner in Kenya was Sama, a San Francisco-based firm that employs workers in Kenya, Uganda and India to label data for Silicon Valley clients like Google, Meta and Microsoft. Sama markets itself as an “ethical AI” company and claims to have helped lift more than 50,000 people out of poverty. The data labelers employed by Sama on behalf of OpenAI were paid a take-home wage of between around $1.32 and $2 per hour depending on seniority and performance. For this story, TIME reviewed hundreds of pages of internal Sama and OpenAI documents, including workers’ payslips, and interviewed four Sama employees who worked on the project. All the employees spoke on condition of anonymity out of concern for their livelihoods. The story of the workers who made ChatGPT possible offers a glimpse into the conditions in this little-known part of the AI industry, which nevertheless plays an essential role in the effort to make AI systems safe for public consumption. “Despite the foundational role played by these data enrichment professionals, a growing body of research reveals the precarious working conditions these workers face,” says the Partnership on AI, a coalition of AI organizations to which OpenAI belongs."
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"The Encyclopedia of the Social and Solidarity Economy is a comprehensive reference text that explores how the social and solidarity economy (SSE) plays a significant role in creating and developing economic activities in alternative ways. In contrast to processes involving commodification, commerci
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alisation, bureaucratisation and corporatisation, the SSE reasserts the place of ethics, social well-being and democratic decision-making in economic activities and governance. Identifying and analysing a myriad of issues and topics associated with the SSE, the Encyclopedia broadens the knowledge base of diverse actors of the SSE, including practitioners, activists and policymakers. Analysing the role of SSE organisations and enterprises in enhancing wellbeing, planetary health and democracy at various levels and their contribution to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, the Encyclopedia invaluably summarises knowledge about the key aspects of the SSE. Accomplished researchers depart from traditional nationalistic, Eurocentric and trans-Atlantic perspectives to explain the SSE from a global perspective with a focus on untold stories of its development in both developing and developed countries." (Publisher description)
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"The year 2018 marks the first year in human history in which a majority of the world's population are now connected to the internet. This mass connectivity means that we have an internet that no longer connects only the world's wealthy. Workers from Lagos to Johannesburg to Nairobi and everywhere i
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n between can now apply for and carry out jobs coming from clients who themselves can be located anywhere in the world. Digital outsourcing firms can now also set up operations in the most unlikely of places in order to tap into hitherto disconnected labour forces. With CEOs in the Global North proclaiming that 'location is a thing of the past' (Upwork, 2018), and governments and civil society in Africa promising to create millions of jobs on the continent, the book asks what this 'new world of digital work' means to the lives of African workers. It draws from a year-long fieldwork in South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, and Uganda, with over 200 interviews with participants including gig workers, call and contact centre workers, self-employed freelancers, small-business owners, government officials, labour union officials, and industry experts. Focusing on both platform-based remote work and call and contact centre work, the book examines the job quality implications of digital work for the lives and livelihoods of African workers." (Publisher description)
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"There are two highlights to this year’s findings, firstly, the same three platforms that scored the first point for Fair Pay last year scored a point this year too. No other platform publicly committed, or provided sufficient evidence, to ensure that workers earn at least the hourly local minimum
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wage after work-related costs. Even with workers and worker groups repeatedly emphasising the importance of a stable income for platform workers, platforms have been reluctant to publicly commit to, and operationalise, a minimum wage policy. Secondly, while workers have engaged in various forms of collective action to voice their concerns in the platform economy, platforms have been uncompromisingly unwilling to recognise or negotiate with any collective body representing workers." (Key findings, page 4)
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