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Caroline Haskins
Business
May 22, 2024 9:00 AM


THE LOW-PAID HUMANS BEHIND AI’S SMARTS ASK BIDEN TO FREE THEM FROM ‘MODERN DAY
SLAVERY’

African workers who label AI data and screen social posts for US tech giants are
calling on President Biden to raise their plight with Kenya's president, William
Ruto, who visits the US this week.
Photo-Illustration: Rosie Struve; Getty Images

Save this storySave
Save this storySave

AI projects like OpenAI’s ChatGPT get part of their savvy from some of the
lowest-paid workers in the tech industry—contractors often in poor countries
paid small sums to correct chatbots and label images. On Wednesday, 97 African
workers who do AI training work or online content moderation for companies like
Meta and OpenAI published an open letter to President Biden, demanding that US
tech companies stop “systemically abusing and exploiting African workers.”

Most of the letter’s signatories are from Kenya, a hub for tech outsourcing,
whose president, William Ruto, is visiting the US this week. The workers allege
that the practices of companies like Meta, OpenAI, and data provider Scale AI
“amount to modern day slavery.” The companies did not immediately respond to a
request for comment.




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A typical workday for African tech contractors, the letter says, involves
“watching murder and beheadings, child abuse and rape, pornography and
bestiality, often for more than 8 hours a day.” Pay is often less than $2 per
hour, it says, and workers frequently end up with post-traumatic stress
disorder, a well-documented issue among content moderators around the world.

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The letter’s signatories say their work includes reviewing content on platforms
like Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram, as well as labeling images and training
chatbot responses for companies like OpenAI that are developing generative-AI
technology. The workers are affiliated with the African Content Moderators
Union, the first content moderators union on the continent, and a group founded
by laid-off workers who previously trained AI technology for companies such as
Scale AI, which sells datasets and data-labeling services to clients including
OpenAI, Meta, and the US military. The letter was published on the site of the
UK-based activist group Foxglove, which promotes tech-worker unions and
equitable tech.

In March, the letter and news reports say, Scale AI abruptly banned people based
in Kenya, Nigeria, and Pakistan from working on Remotasks, Scale AI’s platform
for contract work. The letter says that these workers were cut off without
notice and are “owed significant sums of unpaid wages.”



“When Remotasks shut down, it took our livelihoods out of our hands, the food
out of our kitchens,” says Joan Kinyua, a member of the group of former
Remotasks workers, in a statement to WIRED. “But Scale AI, the big company that
ran the platform, gets away with it, because it’s based in San Francisco.”

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Though the Biden administration has frequently described its approach to labor
policy as “worker-centered.” The African workers’ letter argues that this has
not extended to them, saying “we are treated as disposable.”



“You have the power to stop our exploitation by US companies, clean up this work
and give us dignity and fair working conditions,” the letter says. “You can make
sure there are good jobs for Kenyans too, not just Americans."



Tech contractors in Kenya have filed lawsuits in recent years alleging that
tech-outsourcing companies and their US clients such as Meta have treated
workers illegally. Wednesday’s letter demands that Biden make sure that US tech
companies engage with overseas tech workers, comply with local laws, and stop
union-busting practices. It also suggests that tech companies “be held
accountable in the US courts for their unlawful operations aboard, in particular
for their human rights and labor violations.”

The letter comes just over a year after 150 workers formed the African Content
Moderators Union. Meta promptly laid off all of its nearly 300 Kenya-based
content moderators, workers say, effectively busting the fledgling union. The
company is currently facing three lawsuits from more than 180 Kenyan workers,
demanding more humane working conditions, freedom to organize, and payment of
unpaid wages.

“Everyone wants to see more jobs in Kenya,” Kauna Malgwi, a member of the
African Content Moderators Union steering committee, says. “But not at any cost.
All we are asking for is dignified, fairly paid work that is safe and secure.”






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Caroline Haskins is a freelance reporter based in New York covering tech with a
focus on politics, labor, and culture. She has previously worked as a staff
reporter at Business Insider, BuzzFeed News, and Vice's Motherboard, and as a
research editor at Business Insider. You can send her tips via email... Read
more

Topicsartificial intelligencecrowdsourcingcontent moderationAfricaSocial
MediaLaborJoe BidenMetaOpenAIChatGPT


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WIRED’s resident AI expert Will Knight takes you to the cutting edge of this
fast-changing field and beyond—keeping you informed about where AI and
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