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AI at work

OpenAI hired people to train its AI. Some used AI instead.

404 Media reported on 22 September that contractors hired to train OpenAI's models were removed from the work for using AI to do it.

ERP LEADERS news desk · · First reported by 404 Media · Edition no. 16

The contractors work through Mercor, the firm that hires and manages them. More than ten thousand have worked across OpenAI projects, according to the report.

The job is human review: reading the model's answers and rating them so it learns from a person's judgement. If a chatbot writes those ratings, the task loses the one thing it exists to collect.

Mercor told 404 Media: "When we confirm an expert has used AI to complete a task, we immediately remove them from the project."

One contractor told the site: "I'm not a bad person or worker. I just needed a little boost and turned to AI to help me which eventually led to my downfall." Another said it happens "all the time and people are let go for it all the time, it's pretty much the one thing that will get you kicked off ASAP".

One contractor said they had picked poor answers on purpose to sabotage the training.

OpenAI declined to comment on the removals.

How would you know if the people checking your AI were using AI to check it?

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