“I still do not know why I walked away from the AI training job.”
James Maisiri has a PhD in industrial sociology and was offered 600 rand an hour, twenty times South Africa’s minimum wage, to train an AI on grading essays and assessing students. That’s the exact work his degree qualifies him to do himself. He walked away after a 45-minute interview conducted by the AI system, and he still can’t fully explain the decision. The job paid well and broke no law. It just asked him to train the system to do the job he spent a PhD learning to do.