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‘In the end, you feel blank’: India’s female workers watching hours of abusive content to train AI
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2026
262 points (97.5% liked)
Technology
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Is that seriously an "AI is like a child" poster made to motivate workers?
AI companies sure love to treat humans like machines, while humanizing machines.
I'm honestly so sick of this sick world we live in. Lately it just seems like the veil has slipped and we can see how truly depraved the rich and powerful are and we are not able to do anything significant to change it.
We are, but we’d have to give up a lot.
However, they keep taking more and more. So how long before they take enough that giving up the rest is worth it?
Rotten, sure. Nothing new. It's been a top/down rule for all of human history.
The sick world you live in is online. It's not real. The world you see through your black mirror isn't the same as the one you see outside the window. News has always been a litany of human misery. Online news is pure and condensed human suffering.
Dude... this is insane. This kind of work should be done by law enforcement or something. Certainly by somebody who has seen plenty of video evidence in their lifetime. By somebody who has regular visits with a mental health specialist as a work requirement. Unbelievable the things the tech industry will save on and how little they care about people. Why don't they have their own damn family members watch all that deranged crap?
As much as I hate to say it, law enforcement are people too. Not good people, but people.
Nobody should have to do a job that injured them, physically or mentally.
That's 100% a stupid take.
There are many dangerous jobs that NEED to be done.
And the people who do the jobs to keep your soft ass safe should be honored and well compensated.
Working in EMS feels like this, only you get paid worse somehow
At least you're doing something valuable
That bowling pin isn't gonna extricate itself from that rectum
I did goatsee that coming.
People watch hours of traumatic content all day voluntarily.
How many people have you seen being killed this year? Probably more than most people ever see in their entire lives (before computers).
That trauma adds up for everyone
I now avoid all videos showing deaths or serious injuries (if I know that kind of content is coming).
Feels better to not have those images in my mind.
The same thing happens, to a much lesser extent, when you read emotionally charged headlines. Having your mental health being constantly bombarded with outrage, anger, fear, etc may be good for social media companies and their Engagement metrics, but it's very bad for each individual (and also society).
It's astonishing how much better your mental health is if you stay off social media even for a few days.
1000% Even on Lemmy, my default view is my subscribed communities and none of them are political so, outside of Linux v Windows drama and associated memes I don't have to see much outrage (not counting Mint users, smh)
The best tip I've found is to delete the apps and force yourself to use the web interface (and turn on private mode in your browser so it clears your cookies ever time so you have to type your username and password each time).
Adding that little bit of friction is enough to overcome the random compulsions to check social media. Not that typing in your username and password is hard, but it is annoying enough that you'll avoid it usually.
Give me the names of some of those sweet communities, kind stranger.
Please?
Give these a shot:
https://lemmy.world/c/dull_mens_club https://lemmy.world/c/linux@lemmy.ml https://lemmy.world/c/linux@programming.dev https://lemmy.world/c/linux_gaming https://lemmy.world/c/privacy@lemmy.ml https://lemmy.world/c/privacy@lemmy.dbzer0.com https://lemmy.world/c/privacy@lemmy.ca https://lemmy.world/c/technology https://lemmy.world/c/tenforward https://lemmy.world/c/linuxmemes https://lemmy.world/c/memes
Thank you!
"None" is not a huge number. Why would i want to watch someone die?
It has been long time since social media cared about showing us things that we wanted to see.
There have been several shootings that have had massive social media impact, you may have avoided them (and you did the right thing) but a huge amount of people experienced witnessing their first shooting death and maybe 2nd, 3rd and 4th this year. That's a lot of cumulative psychological stress being inflicted on society and it isn't like we're living in a world that is otherwise a calming paradise...
Social media is inflicting real harms and the people in control don't seem very motivated to try to control them. Or, they did try in tests and determined that Engagement was more profitable and they're shielded from the externalities so who cares really?
Why would i want to watch someone die?
I'm not falling for that.
I can't read URLs.
That trauma adds up for everyone
if they bitchass
These women are GLOBAL heroines.
They absolutely should be treated as such.
I know it's a horrible job, but at this point I wouldn't mind trading some sanity to pay the bills.
Crazy world.
They use AI to pre-select training data anyway. Can't they categorize good content with it? Whitelist vs. blacklist.
Who do you think will train the AI to whitelist things?
The filter-AI that is itself trained to recognize only good content. Right now, they use all except some bad.
Is this AI filter with us in the room?