OpenAI used Kenyan workers on less than $2 per hour to make ChatGPT less toxic
I see so many comments from self-anointed do-gooders that I just have to explain something from my lived experience.<p>I&#x27;m Nigerian. I graduated high school at 15 and because my family didn&#x27;t have the funds for uni, I got a job in what was essentially a sweatshop factory with extra steps. I got paid 12k Naira ($16) per month. After all, I had was a secondary school education and I couldn&#x27;t bargain for better.<p>Roughly one year later, I got a job writing for a content mill where I was paid $1 for 100 words. I can&#x27;t describe my happiness when I got my first $50 for 5,000 words. All earned while sitting at a desk, typing away on a broken laptop, using unreliable internet.<p>To a social justice warrior in SF or NY, it might have been exploitation, but to me an African teenager with no relevant experience or higher education, it was the first step I needed to pull myself up by my bootstraps.<p>I levered up and today, I make the same or a bit more than quite a few freelance writers in the West.<p>Point is, it&#x27;s okay to feel bad for these Africans; but if you really do, you will support free trade - that&#x27;s the most successful instrument for lifting humans out of poverty.<p>Without this &quot;starvation-level&quot; gig like some of you may call it, these workers would settle for something less.<p>Today, Nigeria&#x27;s minimum wage is around 30k Naira, yet many Nigerians don&#x27;t even make that much. On the other hand, a worker making $2 per hour <i>8 hours </i> 5 days will net $80 per week or 59k Naira at the current market rates.<p>If you complain someone is exploiting me, please give me a better job - or let me take my least worst option.