Skilled Older Workers Turn To AI Training To Stay Afloat (theguardian.com)
- Reference: 0181457678
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/26/04/09/0629242/skilled-older-workers-turn-to-ai-training-to-stay-afloat
- Source link: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ng-interactive/2026/apr/07/ai-training-work-jobs
> [Five skilled workers aged 50 and older spoke] to the Guardian about how, after struggling to find work in their fields, they have turned to an emerging and growing category of work: [1]using their expertise to train artificial intelligence models . Known as data annotation, the work involves labeling and evaluating the information used to train AI models like Open AI's ChatGPT or Google's Gemini. A doctor, for example, might review how an AI model answers medical questions to flag incorrect or unsafe responses and suggest better ones, helping the system learn how to generate more accurate and reliable responses. The ultimate goal of training is to level up AI models until they're capable of doing a job as well as a human could -- meaning they could someday replace some of these human workers.
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> The companies behind AI training, such as Mercor, GlobalLogic, TEKsystems, micro1 and Alignerr, operate large contractor networks staffed by people like Ciriello. Their clients include tech giants like OpenAI, Google and Meta, academic researchers and industries including healthcare and finance. For experienced professionals, AI training contracts can be a side hustle -- or a temporary fallback following a layoff -- where top experts can, in some cases, earn over $180 an hour. But that's on the high end. For some older workers [...], it represents another thing entirely: a last refuge in a [2]brutal job market that is harder to stay in, or re-enter, the older they get. For many of them, whether or not they're training their AI replacements in their professions is besides the point. They need the work now.
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> [...] "There's just a lot of desperation out there," Johnson said. As opportunities narrow, many turn to what Joanna Lahey, a professor at Texas A&M University who studies age discrimination and labor outcomes, calls "bridge jobs" -- lower-paying, less demanding roles that help workers stay financially afloat as they approach retirement. Historically, that meant taking temp assignments, retail and fast-food work and gig roles like Uber and food delivery. Now, for skilled workers -- engineers, lawyers, nurses or designers, for example -- using their expertise for AI data training is becoming the new bridge job. "[AI] training work may be better in some ways than those earlier alternatives," Lahey told the Guardian.
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> AI training can offer flexibility, quick income and intellectual engagement. But it's often a clear step down. Professionals in fields such as software development, medicine or finance typically earn six-figure salaries that come with benefits and paid leave, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. According to online job postings, AI training gigs start at $20 an hour, with pay increasing to between $30 and $40 an hour. In some cases, AI trainers with coveted subject matter expertise can earn over $100 an hour. AI training is contract-based, though, meaning the pay and hours are unstable, and it often doesn't come with benefits.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ng-interactive/2026/apr/07/ai-training-work-jobs
[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/16/long-term-unemployment-becoming-a-status-quo-in-todays-job-market.html
Just wonderful (Score:2)
Is it more or less degrading to train your replacement when it's not even human compared to when it's some third-worlder that barely understands you?
I'm personally not inclined to trust anything (human or otherwise) trained by a person with an axe to grind or resentful of their replacement. Someone will have trained the replacement poorly out of spite. I suspect most people have heard stories of this happening when IT started getting offshored or otherwise outsourced in decades past.
Evil (Score:3, Insightful)
Sabotaging your replacement is just evil. If you can be replaced that easily and that cheaply, the problem is not the replacement, it is that your role was never as secure or valuable as you thought.
What I have seen with offshoring is that clients often come crawling back, because in the end they get exactly what they paid for.
In medicine, deliberately entering malicious responses into a medical system would leave a beautifully documented record of your own misconduct. It would violate basic ethics, likely
There's something you don't understand (Score:3)
Companies don't care about the quality of your work or your skills. There is a small number of people who have unique and irreplaceable skills. They are a very small number. These are mostly people who are genetic freaks of one's kind or another. People who have amazing recall and focus and can learn incredibly complex mathematics or people who have incredibly good vision and hand-eye coordination who can become surgeons. Things like that.
For literally everything else good enough is always good enough.
dystopia (Score:2)
there is no one accountable (or can be held accountable) for the bleak future. I for one welcome our EMP overlords.
Re: (Score:1)
Think of it this way, if you're right, then some of the many out of work engineers would build/hack a swarm of attack bots to target the compounds of the ruling elite.
Mixed feelings, actually.... (Score:2)
On one hand? I think there's considerable evidence this AI bubble is going to pop; maybe in 1-2 years from now? If that's the case, the tech workers who manage to get paid training AI models still walk away with that money when it gets shuttered due to lack of funds.
On the other? I also get how distasteful it is to "train your replacement", especially when the replacement is just computer software.
I think much of this depends on how things *really* pan out. I'm not seeing big I.T. job losses due to AI impl
Re: (Score:2)
Predicting a bubble in 1-2 years ... that's not how bubbles work. If it is a bubble, nobody knows what's in 2 years. Bubbles are a short-term effect.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
"I think there's considerable evidence this AI bubble is going to pop" Citations please? I've read lots of speculation, but where's this evidence you claim?
I think many of us may wish there's a bubble that may pop, but 'if wishes were fishes..."
There IS evidence that job losses are occurring, it's not just hypothetical, just because you say "I'm not seeing..." perhaps in your immediate world, evidence is to the contrary (just a few I found)
[1]https://www.goldmansachs.com/i... [goldmansachs.com]
[2]https://econofact.org/factbrie... [econofact.org]
[3]ht [adpresearch.com]
[1] https://www.goldmansachs.com/insights/articles/how-will-ai-affect-the-us-labor-market
[2] https://econofact.org/factbrief/fact-check-has-ai-already-caused-some-job-displacement
[3] https://www.adpresearch.com/yes-ai-is-affecting-employment-heres-the-data/
Re: (Score:2)
No, there is no AI bubble. A bubble happens when valuations (stock prices) wildly exceed revenue - that happened during the dot.com bubble - companies with *no revenue whatsoever* were valued to the moon. And no one seemed to notice or care.
Todays situation with AI is not that. Revenue is massive, is growing wildly, and stock valuations are really not overextended - given the reasonable estimates of future growth for the companies. There is a huge amount of money being used to build out more AI, but tha
How to vote for your interests (Score:2, Informative)
1) Nov 2026 vote out the clowns who want to actually take away your right to vote, are causing inflation, ruining America's reputation, ... long list
2) Get rid of the 2 party system. Support any and all measures to do ranked choice voting which gets rid of 'vote so the other guy doesn't win'.
3) Nov 2028 vote in completely in your own interest without having to 'vote so the other guy doesn't win'
From middle class to this (Score:2)
> ... it often doesn't come with benefits.
Nothing says 'survival' wages or "you're disposable", like the absence of health-care. Once again, it's a US employer's market and they are ensuring the employees cut their own throat. With trained AI machines for their workforce, they can stop paying wages and start buying more politicians.
Re:Fuck the Nazi Guardian (Score:4, Insightful)
Hi! American here. You appear to have committed a small typographical error. In actuality, the organizations using violence to enact the cultural destruction of the Western world are in fact fully governmental, and they are using immigrants as scapegoats and victims to satisfy the atavistic bloodlust of their pig-ignorant supporters. Don't fret, easy mistake to make!
Re: (Score:2)
Who the fuck is "they"? "NGOs"? You mean the Red Fucking Cross?
The only reason there's not a 100% chance you are a racist is that you might be a bot.
Re: (Score:1)
The red cross is dirty
[1]https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOf... [reddit.com]
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/6y3cvv/why_is_everyone_hating_the_red_cross_now/