One of the things that makes AI seem neat is that it sometimes feels like magic when you enter a question and get a reasonable answer in a human-like tone. For Bloomberg, Davey Alba reports on how some of that magic is just a bunch of people labeling data for low wages:
Other technology companies training AI products also hire human contractors to improve them. In January, Time reported that laborers in Kenya, paid $2 an hour, had worked to make ChatGPT less toxic. Other tech giants, including Meta Platforms Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Apple Inc. make use of subcontracted staff to moderate social network content and product reviews, and to provide technical support and customer service.
“If you want to ask, what is the secret sauce of Bard and ChatGPT? It’s all of the internet. And it’s all of this labeled data that these labelers create,” said Laura Edelson, a computer scientist at New York University. “It’s worth remembering that these systems are not the work of magicians — they are the work of thousands of people and their low-paid labor.”
