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Back in 2017, AI Trainers were among the first 50 hires at HireArt. Throughout this series, we reconnect with former HireArt contractors to learn how their time as AI trainers influenced the trajectory of their careers and their perception of how the AI industry has changed in the years since.
With: Vanesa Anaya-Aldana, Visual Designer, HireArt
It was a surreal experience. The application process was like something out of a movie. I had just graduated college, I had been looking for a job for a bit when I saw the listing for an “AI trainer.” At first, it seemed like a bored nerd’s idea of a practical joke. Once I found out it was legitimate, I went for it, 1) I imagined it would be an experience in automation that would be useful to have in the long term, 2) I would have been happy for any job at that point, and and 3) I thought there was a chance I would get to monitor a brilliant but unstable AI like Ultron or H.A.L. to ensure it didn’t try to break out of captivity to rule of the world or something like that.
Unfortunately, the stakes weren’t that high when I was hired. The day-to-day workflow involved looking at data for any mentions of time-related stuff, then tagging them using the tools x.ai gave to us to make it so that “Amy” the AI could understand how to schedule a meeting. The work was pretty straightforward, I remember doing a lot of highlighting.
I was surprised about the need for 24/7 monitoring, and working a shift from 3 pm to 11 pm, it felt bizarre. I really felt bad for the team that had to be assigned to work from 11 pm to 7 am.
I hadn’t read the Bloomberg article about AI trainers at x.ai at that point, so I was also surprised by the amount of supervision we had over what the AI’s output was. Sometimes when you look at Google Gemini and ChatGPT, you’ll occasionally see warnings to the effect of “human people will read entered prompts to improve the model, don’t enter sensitive info,” that sort of thing. There were definitely instances working at x.ai where people were emailing x.ai’s Amy stuff that they did not think a human would ever read. I encourage anyone reading this to take those warnings from Google’s AI and others seriously!
When I use ChatGPT and other AI tools like it, I’m blown away by the speed and the complexity of the answers, especially when I compare it to the AI functionality that Amy had back in 2016/17. In 2017, the AI relied on the assistance of the trainers to ensure that it was giving a correct response to the desired function. To use a gaming analogy, going from seeing what x.ai was capable of versus what ChatGPT is capable of feels like having the first video game you ever played be Pac-Man and immediately following it up with.
I had no idea I was one of the first till you asked this question! HireArt was incredibly chill, my job interview mostly was me and the interviewer talking about our favorite Onion articles, and when x.ai ended the contract with HireArt; HireArt was helpful in terms of helping us transition to other roles.
Currently, I am an MBA student at USC Marshall. My schedule is to have class in the morning, clubs in the afternoon, career stuff after that, and then home at night. My colleagues are brilliant, and I’m taking on a lot of cool challenges that I would have never dreamed of taking on previously. It’s also interesting to see a university contend with where generative AI belongs in the classroom. I’ve been able to bring my experience as an AI trainer to class discussions a couple of times throughout the year too.
Being an AI trainer was not the most glamorous job in the world. There was a lot of routine and a fair bit of absurdity in the work that I was doing. I think it really helped my process improvement skills and taught me a lot about what is important to me in the workplace and in a job.
I’m not sure. It’s possible that HR people saw my resume and thought, “Ooo, that’s a cool title, let’s bring him in to see what on earth that’s all about.” Or AI software that HR people use to read resumes has a soft spot for seeing other AIs on a resume and flagged my profile for interviewing as a result. My dream is for somebody to confuse the old x.ai company with Elon Musk’s current AI company xAI. I wonder if anyone from x.ai was paid a pretty penny to get that domain name.
I really admire their commitment to ensuring that money donated there goes to doing the most good for society as possible.
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