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Google hired microworkers to train its controversial Project Maven AI

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Re: Google hired microworkers to train its controversial Project Maven AI

#21

Post by demarq »

c0achmcguirk wrote: post #5
furyg3 wrote: post #3

> he workers were hired through a crowdsourcing gig company outfit called Figure Eight, which pays as little at $1 an hour for people to perform short, seemingly mindless tasks. Wow. Shouldn't there be a 'minimum gig fee' for this type of work? I mean many tasks may take a few seconds for a few cents, but if you work a solid hour and only earn $1 gross income, that seems extremely exploitative (even if the recipients…

I've picked up a few gigs on Mechanical Turk. You pick up the tasks that are worth your time (that you are qualified for). If you don't like the microtask for the price offered move onto the next one. If the entity offering the microtasks (gig) don't see enough interest in their tasks, they can raise the bid. I think that's extremely fair. Let the market dictate the price per task. How do you know what the right pric…

Is the market really dictating anything at that price or is it desperate.

I don't think anyone with the power to dictate would accept a dollar an hour.

The right word for this is exploitation. Google and Figure Eight directly contributing to income inequality.

Re: Google hired microworkers to train its controversial Project Maven AI

#23

Post by bearmcbearsly »

furyg3 wrote: post #3

> he workers were hired through a crowdsourcing gig company outfit called Figure Eight, which pays as little at $1 an hour for people to perform short, seemingly mindless tasks. Wow. Shouldn't there be a 'minimum gig fee' for this type of work? I mean many tasks may take a few seconds for a few cents, but if you work a solid hour and only earn $1 gross income, that seems extremely exploitative (even if the recipients…

> if you work a solid hour and only earn $1 gross income, that seems extremely exploitative

If that $1 per hour provides you with a better income than your peers with less physical labor, then this doesn't sound exploitive at all.

Re: Google hired microworkers to train its controversial Project Maven AI

#24

Post by saagarjha »

dlp211 wrote: post #20
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see a huge difference between "not helping the military" and "not helping create autonomous weapons". And our drone program is hardly military, it's a mostly CIA-led project to assassinate people without due process in areas we are not at war.

You have no idea what you are talking about. The vast majority of drone use is for military surveillance that have no strike capabilities, and are used to determine whether to put soldiers on the ground. Good drone surveillance is literally the best resource we have for preventing bad military outcomes. It saves lives, both American and other.

The problem is that technology developed for "good" drone surveillance can be transferred quite easily to drones with strike capabilities.

Re: Google hired microworkers to train its controversial Project Maven AI

#25

Post by tomcooks »

bearmcbearsly wrote: post #23
furyg3 wrote: post #3

> he workers were hired through a crowdsourcing gig company outfit called Figure Eight, which pays as little at $1 an hour for people to perform short, seemingly mindless tasks. Wow. Shouldn't there be a 'minimum gig fee' for this type of work? I mean many tasks may take a few seconds for a few cents, but if you work a solid hour and only earn $1 gross income, that seems extremely exploitative (even if the recipients…

> if you work a solid hour and only earn $1 gross income, that seems extremely exploitative If that $1 per hour provides you with a better income than your peers with less physical labor, then this doesn't sound exploitive at all.

(Especially if you sub-hire other people for 0.60$/hour, pocketing 0.40$/hour from each of them for ZERO effort.

Re: Google hired microworkers to train its controversial Project Maven AI

#26

Post by anastalaz »

tomcooks wrote: post #25
bearmcbearsly wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you work a solid hour and only earn $1 gross income, that seems extremely exploitative If that $1 per hour provides you with a better income than your peers with less physical labor, then this doesn't sound exploitive at all.

(Especially if you sub-hire other people for 0.60$/hour, pocketing 0.40$/hour from each of them for ZERO effort.

Who then can sub-hire other people for 0.40$/hour, pocketing 0.20$/hour from each of them for ZERO effort.

Re: Google hired microworkers to train its controversial Project Maven AI

#27

Post by kartan »

all_blue_chucks wrote: post #12

This is standard practice in AI training. There are countless workers in Asia (typically) who are perfectly willing to help train your algo for less pay than Western workers, and the location where the work is performed doesn't matter at all. What would be news is if Google were paying $11/hr + social security, etc. just to have people tell an algo which pictures have a dog in them. That would put them at a competiti…

> What would be news is if Google were paying $11/hr + social security, etc. just to have people tell an algo which pictures have a dog in them. That would put them at a competitive disadvantage.

Yes. Sometimes maximizing profits and having a functional society where everyone has a meal and home is incompatible. I would prefer to see that the long term viability of countries is put higher up than the short term profits of companies. And that is why it is so important to set all countries to the same standards of living (on the high-end preferably).

Re: Google hired microworkers to train its controversial Project Maven AI

#28

Post by ocdtrekkie »

dlp211 wrote: post #20
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see a huge difference between "not helping the military" and "not helping create autonomous weapons". And our drone program is hardly military, it's a mostly CIA-led project to assassinate people without due process in areas we are not at war.

You have no idea what you are talking about. The vast majority of drone use is for military surveillance that have no strike capabilities, and are used to determine whether to put soldiers on the ground. Good drone surveillance is literally the best resource we have for preventing bad military outcomes. It saves lives, both American and other.

The problem with that claim is that a significant portion of our drone use does not take place in countries we are deploying soldiers. And an insane number of dead children keep turning up.

Re: Google hired microworkers to train its controversial Project Maven AI

#29

Post by ChuckMcM »

demarq wrote: post #21
c0achmcguirk wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've picked up a few gigs on Mechanical Turk. You pick up the tasks that are worth your time (that you are qualified for). If you don't like the microtask for the price offered move onto the next one. If the entity offering the microtasks (gig) don't see enough interest in their tasks, they can raise the bid. I think that's extremely fair. Let the market dictate the price per task. How do you know what the right pric…

Is the market really dictating anything at that price or is it desperate. I don't think anyone with the power to dictate would accept a dollar an hour. The right word for this is exploitation. Google and Figure Eight directly contributing to income inequality.

Except you have captured the essence of the market, a 'fair' price (in market terms) is one that leaves the seller thinking they got too little and the buyer thinking they paid too much. They were both right at the equilibrium point.

Exploitation occurs when you prevent the buyers or sellers in the market any ability to move. So if these buyers have no other opportunities or ways to change they can be exploited, if the sellers don't have any other buyers they can be exploited.

Neither Crowd Flower (Figure 8) nor Mechanical Turk "exploit" workers because the workers have a choice of tasks, and the option to add skills to open up other tasks. Nor can the workers "exploit" the people offering jobs because they cannot prevent another worker from taking a job at an offered price, even if they personally wouldn't take the job at that price.

What it does do though is allow workers who have a lower cost of living and expense rate to bid lower (or take jobs that pay less) and still cover there costs.

Re: Google hired microworkers to train its controversial Project Maven AI

#30

Post by kartan »

ineedasername wrote: post #19
c0achmcguirk wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've picked up a few gigs on Mechanical Turk. You pick up the tasks that are worth your time (that you are qualified for). If you don't like the microtask for the price offered move onto the next one. If the entity offering the microtasks (gig) don't see enough interest in their tasks, they can raise the bid. I think that's extremely fair. Let the market dictate the price per task. How do you know what the right pric…

on right price : I think a livable wage is reasonable. Though market forces should generally push unskilled labor wages high enough to be livable (though no more than the bare minimum) But for this type of task, that might be performed in poorest parts of the world, $1/hour may be a livable wage for very unskilled labor. So I'm willing to withhold judgement on that.

> Though market forces should generally push unskilled labor wages high enough to be livable

I do not see how the market forces can do that.

In the USA there is a lot of non-livable paying jobs that need to be complemented by public spending. For a person that has nothing, a salary that is not enough to pay for their basic needs is better than nothing. That creates a race to the bottom.

You get the lowest price independently of if people that do the job can make ends meet or not.

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