“The contracts stated that OpenAI would pay an hourly rate of $12.50 to Sama for the work, which was between six and nine times the amount Sama employees on the project were taking home per hour.”
The Kenyan labelers took home between about $1.32 and $2 an hour. OpenAI paid $12.50. Sama kept the difference for the privilege of standing between a well-funded AI lab and the workers reading the internet’s worst text. “Safe” ChatGPT was built on a subcontracting margin.