One Sama worker tasked with reading and labeling text for OpenAI told TIME he suffered from recurring visions after reading a graphic description of a man having sex with a dog in the presence of a young child. “That was torture,” he said. “You will read a number of statements like that all through the week. By the time it gets to Friday, you are disturbed from thinking through that picture.” The work’s traumatic nature eventually led Sama to cancel all its work for OpenAI in February 2022, eight months earlier than planned.
Is not worth high pay, but I would say psychologically damaging your employees and then not even giving them the counseling tools to help them is absolutely worth high pay. You should not have to endure things like that for an ‘above the median’ wage in a country where ‘the median’ is still being very poor. I see this as not much better than defending other corporations making poor people in Africa work in mines for a decent wage relative to others in their country but not giving them safety equipment. And they still die poor.
I obviously prefer people aren’t in poverty at all. But I have far more sympathy for the miner risking their lives than someone reading something disgusting/disturbing on the internet, it is not anywhere near close.
You don’t understand how massive psychological damage can be as bad as seriously endangering someone’s physical health?
Just because a graphic description of a dog being raped while a child watches doesn’t bother you doesn’t mean it won’t bother anyone else. In fact, I would wager that it would be pretty disturbing for most people to read that, let alone read that sort of thing for hours every day.
And then there are the ones who are just as low-paid but have to look at images instead. Again, you may not be bothered by CSAM, but I would wager that most people would find looking at that all the time very hard to deal with and it could easily result in PTSD.
Getting crushed in a mine collapse harms everyone. As unfashionable as it is, the vast majority of people, that I know at least, have experienced far more traumatic things than you could ever get from third person observation.
I hate gore, I hate seeing people dying, I hate hearing about those sorts of things. They seriously upset me, but to compare that discomfort to anything like someone working (maybe enslaved) in a mine in essentially anywhere in Africa is ridiculous. Risking on a daily basis, painful death, painful suffering than death, likely slow death from dust inhalation, severe maming, etc.
If you really believed reading it were that dangerous, it is evil of you to even summarize it as you did and risk serious harm to others.
PTSD leads to suicides. Very often. And even without suicide, people with poor mental health often live very short lives due to stress.
Also, please do not misrepresent what I said. I talked about not giving them safety equipment, not them dying in a mine collapse. Both involve not giving the workers protection they need for low pay and could easily lead to very poor health and short lives in exchange for being somewhat less poor than their neighbors but still poor. The miners are not given physical safety equipment and the workers for OpenAI are not given the mental safety equipment.
I think you trust too much in modern psychology if you think that this job would lead to significant suicides but non-chemical therapy would prevent. Much more effective would just be pre-screening or informing applicants of the duties(which may have been done)
All of the four employees interviewed by TIME described being mentally scarred by the work. Although they were entitled to attend sessions with “wellness” counselors, all four said these sessions were unhelpful and rare due to high demands to be more productive at work. Two said they were only given the option to attend group sessions, and one said their requests to see counselors on a one-to-one basis instead were repeatedly denied by Sama management.
They are not being given the psychological tools they need. That’s a big part of the problem. Again, it is no different than not being given safety equipment.
You’re welcome to strongly disagree that this:
Is not worth high pay, but I would say psychologically damaging your employees and then not even giving them the counseling tools to help them is absolutely worth high pay. You should not have to endure things like that for an ‘above the median’ wage in a country where ‘the median’ is still being very poor. I see this as not much better than defending other corporations making poor people in Africa work in mines for a decent wage relative to others in their country but not giving them safety equipment. And they still die poor.
I obviously prefer people aren’t in poverty at all. But I have far more sympathy for the miner risking their lives than someone reading something disgusting/disturbing on the internet, it is not anywhere near close.
You don’t understand how massive psychological damage can be as bad as seriously endangering someone’s physical health?
Just because a graphic description of a dog being raped while a child watches doesn’t bother you doesn’t mean it won’t bother anyone else. In fact, I would wager that it would be pretty disturbing for most people to read that, let alone read that sort of thing for hours every day.
And then there are the ones who are just as low-paid but have to look at images instead. Again, you may not be bothered by CSAM, but I would wager that most people would find looking at that all the time very hard to deal with and it could easily result in PTSD.
Getting crushed in a mine collapse harms everyone. As unfashionable as it is, the vast majority of people, that I know at least, have experienced far more traumatic things than you could ever get from third person observation.
I hate gore, I hate seeing people dying, I hate hearing about those sorts of things. They seriously upset me, but to compare that discomfort to anything like someone working (maybe enslaved) in a mine in essentially anywhere in Africa is ridiculous. Risking on a daily basis, painful death, painful suffering than death, likely slow death from dust inhalation, severe maming, etc.
If you really believed reading it were that dangerous, it is evil of you to even summarize it as you did and risk serious harm to others.
PTSD leads to suicides. Very often. And even without suicide, people with poor mental health often live very short lives due to stress.
Also, please do not misrepresent what I said. I talked about not giving them safety equipment, not them dying in a mine collapse. Both involve not giving the workers protection they need for low pay and could easily lead to very poor health and short lives in exchange for being somewhat less poor than their neighbors but still poor. The miners are not given physical safety equipment and the workers for OpenAI are not given the mental safety equipment.
I think you trust too much in modern psychology if you think that this job would lead to significant suicides but non-chemical therapy would prevent. Much more effective would just be pre-screening or informing applicants of the duties(which may have been done)
Did you not read what was pasted?
They are not being given the psychological tools they need. That’s a big part of the problem. Again, it is no different than not being given safety equipment.