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For a detailed understanding of the psychological harm and detrimental long-lasting effects of explicit image annotation see the following documentary (not specific to India). Undercover reporter does annotation of explicit images for AI but is so traumatized by what he sees that he quits in two weeks;

The "Modern Day Slaves" Of The AI Tech World. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPSZFUiElls

I long time ago, I was operating a "social network" which allowed image uploads. (India local, didn't amount to much as was shutdown.).

Immediately at launch, we started having a huge amount of (image) pron being uploaded into the pages. We put in some rate limits etc, but did not want to put any major restrictions of user signups etc as that would hurt signup figures (important to the ceo!).

We already had some content review people thru a temp agency on site, so we checked with them and they were fine doing this manual filtering of these images for us. All young (early 20s) women. While my team built a quick "dashboard" for them to be able to do this image filtering quickly and conveniently, I had a detailed conversation with them as I was very concerned about having them review this kinda stuff for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Truly nasty stuff.

They were _perfectly_ clear that they had no issues with it, and they told me in so many words to not give it a second thought and to let them get back to work.

It was a surprise, but it was a point of realization: there are much worse things they could be doing. And looking a porn has shock value only the first time. I was under-estimating these women and assuming they were some "snowflakes" who could not deal with something this silly and non-threatening.

Just my own person anec-data.

When I was in my 20s I worked for a well-known global telco. In our office, we had a group of people whose literal job was watching streaming porn from around the world all day. They had walls of screens running simultaneously.

Those streams were customers. Our people’s job was to monitor the streams for video and audio quality issues. When I would tell my friends that I worked with guys who’s literal job was watching porn on a sofa all day, they thought it must be the best job in the world.

But when I talked to the guys that actually had the job, they said it was a terribly boring chore. Even worse, they said you quickly become so desensitized that it bled over into their non-work life in a negative way. Almost everyone that had that job eventually grew to hate it.

These kinds of jobs have always existed. To some extent someone needs to do it. While we may be outsourcing it now, there is a long history of paying people in the US to do it.

I remember watching this kind of content for free on Liveleak back in the day.

Maybe they should get edgy teenagers to do the content classification rather than third-world rural women with minimal media exposure.

I’ve noticed that the type of people to have problems with these kind of jobs - people who think this is some type of neocolonialism - can not appreciate the difference between real material poverty and metaphysical problems with watching some abusive content.

This person is earning a really competitive wage. She’s getting the power and independence to lead a materially good life. This will trump every other metaphysical concern you can have by watching these abusive videos.

Some one has to moderate these videos and it’s great that it’s someone poor who’s getting the opportunity.

> Sometimes, when I’m with my partner, I feel like a stranger in my own body. I want closeness, but my mind keeps pulling away.

Dissociation. A classic sign of trauma and PTSD.

It's a well compensated job vs local opportunities but feels like it should be an extravagantly compensated job vs local opportunities. Someone has to do it, but also somewhere along the continuum of doing factory garment work for $100 and deep sea welding for $100k, it feels like this should be closer to latter.

Seems like kind of job that needs physical filtering. Onboard bunch of candidates, measure their vitals, find low responders to abusive stimulus, hire them. I'm sure there's some poorly replicated psych study done on 1st years to draw from.

No one should have to do this job. And if you can't make your social network function or AI thing function without it, then maybe, just maybe, we shouldn't have that social network or AI thing.

None of the tech companies really want to moderate. Not because free peaches but because it costs a metric ton of money.

This is an absolutely horrific thing to make a person do. I see comments that say "well someone needs to do it." Then why not volunteer?

Is there a solution to this?

Let's say these jobs are bad. What do we do then? Just not have people do this job? Not allow uploads?

How do humans with very little exposure to grotesque violence or extreme content universally label such content so well? This is not graduate level data that needs labeling.

What is missing in an AI model for it to intuitively understand what content is extreme from very few labeled sample in training?

> Murmu, 26, is a content moderator for a global technology company, logging on from her village in India’s Jharkhand state

> With just four months left on her contract, which pays about £260 a month

Earning US$350/mo working remotely in a village in one of the poorest states in India is an extremely competitive given that the alternative would be spending 12 hours sewing fast fashion for Zara earning US$130-150/mo [0], doing bit piece ag labor for around US$100/mo and participating in MGNREGA for US$50/mo, become a housewife, or become a Naxalite/Maoist insurgent to earn a couple thousand dollars when surrendering [1].

Content moderation means interacting with extremely depressing and horrid content, but someone needs to do it, and once models get good enough we would start seeing articles about how "all the good 100% remote first jobs with no barrier to entry" are being automated to oblivion.

Yes it sucks, but the alternative is becoming a migrant worker or working in light manufacturing where QoL is worse. Heck, we used to see similar articles about Chinese workers for Apple barely 14 years ago in then equally poor Sichuan [2], but you don't see those kinds of articles anymore.

Development takes time and the fact that US$350/mo remote data annotation and content moderation jobs are now penetrating into villages in what used to be the Naxalite/Maoist/Red Corridor where bombings and gun battles were a part of normal life just 10 years ago [3] is a massive step up developmentally - it means that there is robust enough internet, literacy, banking, and public services penetration for the seeds for a services economy to form.

Edit: Thanks for the downvotes westerners - my family is from these kinds of villages in India and Vietnam. The alternatives are extremely bleak - especially for a tribal woman like Ms Murmu at the bottom of the social and patriarchal hierarchy.

[0] - https://theprint.in/ground-reports/industries-finally-return...

[1] - https://www.thehansindia.com/news/national/18-yr-old-maoist-...

[2] - https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/business/ieconomy-apples-...

[3] - https://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2016/Nov/23/six-maoi...

When VCs and investors keep saying 'There will be new jobs', they never tell you exactly what they are - on purpose.

Now we know that it is actually being a data labeller, AI tutor and content moderator, but in very low wage countries such as in India.

This is the post-AGI reality. 'Abundance', but not for you.

Eww. Like 19th c. children in dangerous factories, abusing poor people's mental health sifting through the Global North's cavalcade of depravity. There must exist more productive and honest uses of people's time, and some jobs shouldn't be done for any amount of money. Some jobs done risky ways shouldn't be done by human beings at all in dangerous manners (coal mining without safety equipment, loom maintenance while running, carrying sulfur chunks out of active volcanoes) because they lower us all. "But they're making money" is not a good enough excuse because that's a false choice as there infinitely other activities, and any number of safer activities or similar tasks done with meaningful precautions are needed, desirable, and could be done instead.