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.I'm Nigerian. I graduated high school at 15 and because my family didn'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't bargain for better.Roughly one year later, I got a job writing for a content mill where I was paid $1 for 100 words. I can'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.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.I levered up and today, I make the same or a bit more than quite a few freelance writers in the West.Point is, it's okay to feel bad for these Africans; but if you really do, you will support free trade - that's the most successful instrument for lifting humans out of poverty.Without this "starvation-level" gig like some of you may call it, these workers would settle for something less.Today, Nigeria's minimum wage is around 30k Naira, yet many Nigerians don't even make that much. On the other hand, a worker making $2 per hour 8 hours  5 days will net $80 per week or 59k Naira at the current market rates.If you complain someone is exploiting me, please give me a better job - or let me take my least worst option.