[bloodyplonker22]

You perfectly illustrate the problem with typical western thinking. The workers you refer to may be low paid when compared to the US and other western countries, but they are highly paid in their respective countries. A lot of the time, the jobs (ie: iPhone assembly, AI related) are highly sought after because they are a great alternative to the other jobs that the workers with their skill set can get. It is also a great way to get a step up the job ladder for them and new acquire skills.

[ClumsyPilot]

> A lot of the time, the jobs (ie: iPhone assembly, AI related) are highly sought after

This description alsp applies to mining toxic substances by hand and high-end prostitution.

The artisan cobalt-mining by hand is relatively popular, and kills you withing 10 years. It is not difficult to explot desperate people. I dont think we should be whitewashing it

[danielmarkbruce]

The woman who started Sama (mentioned in the article) explicitly started the company to help people in those countries. Her entire life appears to have been directed toward helping people in Africa, she had a history of it. She wasn't there to exploit people.

[boeingUH60]

You mean the same Sama that charged OpenAI $12.50 per hour for a contract and paid their African contractors $2 or less an hour?

https://time.com/6247678/openai-chatgpt-kenya-workers/

[metadat]

Discussed 2 days ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34426421 (570 comments)

(Warning: Shitshow)

[danielmarkbruce]

Time... aren't exactly being truthful. They constantly refer to "take-home", rather than pre-tax. The all in cost for a person includes pre-tax wages, often taxes on top of that, desks, computers, managers, electricity, office space, benefits and so on. Common sense suggests they are likely making 30% or so margins. If it were much more than that a competitor would eat their lunch. Look at the publicly listed services companies like DXC, Wipro, Accenture - margins are 20-30%.

[colpabar]

But it is exploitation though, right? If a bunch of people in a western company say "well, we could just hire people in africa because that would significantly reduce our costs," isn't that an exploitation of cheap labor in africa?

[danielmarkbruce]

I guess it depends on your definition of "exploit".

If OpenAI had to pay more, they would have gone with another option. It's challenging to work across time zones, across cultures, across language barriers. Working with folks in Reno, NV or somewhere in the southern states of the US would have been the choice for OpenAI at a much higher price.

It's a competitive world. On the surface the Sama founder knew that and realized the options were higher wages for these folks in Africa, or none. The choice of even higher wasn't actually on the table.

[ClumsyPilot]

> If OpenAI had to pay more, they would have gone with another option... Its a competitive world.

In 2000~s rating agencies rated subprime mortgages as AAA-bonds, causing the global financial crisis. If they rated the bonds as junk, the banks would go to another rating agency. Its a competitive world.

Therefore defrauding all of us was the right thing to do?

Just because the problem is inherent in the system and you individually can't change it, does not mean you cannot acknowledge the system's fault's.

[danielmarkbruce]

That's a clumsy analogy. Issuers paying for ratings is and agreed problem (the ratings agencies, issuers, investors, regulators agree it's a problem) and only happens because they can't make another model work.

Competition driving costs down is viewed by many as a good thing. Many people view the higher wages the folks in this case got v their other opportunities as an opportunity, not as them being exploited. Capitalism is a system which some might not agree with, but pretending it's an obvious problem is wrong. Pretending low prices is an obvious problem is wrong. Many countries have explicitly chosen a capitalist system (competitive, market model where costs and prices are driven down) and have legislation and agencies devoted to protecting the system. Those countries aren't run by dictators.

[jeremyjh]

Is it exploitation to buy things from poor people?

[ClumsyPilot]

Is it exploitation to buy a kidney from a homeless man for $500?

[the_af]

It can be, if you're taking advantage of them being poor in order to pay them way less than you would pay others.

[credit_guy]

It would be much worse if they paid way above the local wages. It would trigger corruption. You'd could up with a black market in applications for the jobs, or protection racket, or highly paid leaks of the job interview problem sets, imagination has no limit.

You can say it's OpenAI's duty to make sure all these things don't happen. But they are not there to police the local society. They are there to run their own business. They don't have the competency to make sure corruption does not happen.

[atlantic]

No, it's use of cheap labor in Africa.

[Dalewyn]

All business is about exploiting someone somewhere for your benefit, no exceptions. The only question is whether that exploitation is within tolerable limits.

[yesenadam]

> All business is about exploiting someone somewhere for your benefit, no exceptions.

Where did you learn that? I don't think it's at all true. It seems maybe you have a no-true-scotsman definition of 'exploited', so that no evidence against your claim would change your mind.

Picture a baker, who makes bread for people, who get bread, the baker gets money. Where is the necessary exploitation? I can't imagine where your confidence - "no exceptions" comes from. There are no win-win exchanges in the world, and none even possible? I'm not a huge fan of capitalism but that seems absurd.

[ben_w]

"Exploitation" has at least two (IMO very different) meanings.

Even though most of the time "exploiting an opportunity" is neutral and "exploiting our workers" is either a scam or abuse, I have seen some texts that used the word in the same sense for both cases.

[Dalewyn]

The baker is exploiting his customers' need/want for bread. The customers are exploiting the baker's need/want for money.

Another way to describe business is that all business is about ripping someone off without pissing them off (and ideally making them happy). Middlemen who make their profit off margins are the most obvious example, but as I said this applies to all forms of business.

I reiterate: All business is about exploiting someone somewhere for your benefit, no exceptions.

[colpabar]

it's communist nonsense that's used to justify the idea that walking dogs for ~25 hours a week is just too much.

[bumby]

I think your example explains why the article is a potentially gray area of exploitation.

I think it's clear exploitation when you offer someone employment that adversely impacts their rights. So artisan cobalt-mining is exploitative, because of it's health effects, would go against the UN's definition of "the right to work in just and favourable conditions"[1]. However, I'm not sure what, if any, rights are being compromised by the topic in the article. Maybe there's a case that it's unjust because of the asymmetry in the value created and payment. If there are some rights abuses, then it becomes a clearly exploitative endeavor.

[1] https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/human-rights

[hungryforcodes]

Living in Asia, I agree with the OP and find your total switch of topics in order to gain status points on HN gross. People in Asia desire good factory jobs manufacturing iPhone and what not. What the hell is wrong with that? Why you switch this to mining cobalt by hand is totally dumb. Also where are your sources? Mining cobalt by hand? Any mining operation in Asia will use the latest tools available. You think people here are running around in huts, scavenging cobalt and other precious metals from computer motherboards discarded in the year 1998? Get with it!

[wolverine876]

Exploitation involves, by definition, giving the exploited something they need. If you don't have food, and someone gives you food in return for slave labor, they are exploiting you.

[josephg]

If people in a poor country are offered jobs in a factory, and they prefer those jobs over subsistence farming (since the conditions are better and pay is better), who exactly is worse off as a result? Sounds like a profitable trade to me given both parties walk away happy.

Outsourced factory jobs are the mechanism by which previously poor countries like Taiwan and China (in many ways) have been pulled out of poverty. The process is happening before our eyes in Vietnam right now.

Do you think you’re doing poor people a favour by denying them well paid jobs? Should we do the same in the west, and have companies fire all our poorest employees?

I can hardly think of a more cruel policy.

[wolverine876]

> If people in a poor country are offered jobs in a factory, and they prefer those jobs over subsistence farming (since the conditions are better and pay is better), who exactly is worse off as a result?

You aren't understanding the meaning of "exploitation". See the GP.

> both parties walk away happy

Are they actually happy? Or are they exploited? That's the issue.

[josephg]

>> If people in a poor country are offered jobs in a factory, and they prefer those jobs over subsistence farming (since the conditions are better and pay is better), who exactly is worse off as a result?

> You aren't understanding the meaning of "exploitation". See the GP.

My question stands regardless of the meaning of the word "exploitation". I didn't use that word in my question. - Which I note you dodged answering. Who is worse off? Can you point to them?

>> both parties walk away happy

> Are they actually happy? Or are they exploited? That's the issue.

Why are they mutually exclusive? If being exploited isn't something with negative connotations, why can't I be "exploited" and be happy at the same time? If I hire a plumber to fix my leaky sink, who cares what the definition of the word exploited is? He's happy for the work, and I'm happy for my sink being fixed. We all walk away better off.

Was he exploited? Was I? Who cares when its consensual and we're both better off?

This argument about what "exploit" means seems pointless and unrelated to the actual topic - which seems to be, is it moral to hire someone in a poor country to do work for you. My claim is that not sending work to poor countries is often even more cruel - because it keeps people in poverty.

[wolverine876]

> This argument about what "exploit" means seems pointless and unrelated to the actual topic - which seems to be, is it moral to hire someone in a poor country to do work for you. My claim is that not sending work to poor countries is often even more cruel - because it keeps people in poverty.

Exploitation is not a pointless issue; it harms many millions, maybe billions of people.

The options are not only A) Exploit people, or B) Don't hire anyone. We can and should hire them in ways that aren't exploitative.

[8note]

This is another common problem with tropical western thinking -- forgetting the historical context. Colonialism happened, and the people are so poor and desperate now because of things the west did in the past.

[miguelazo]

This does explain a lot of the difference in development, especially in very poor countries. And this isn’t just a result of “old”, traditional colonialism, but imperialism in the form of meddling in their internal politics. Guatemala is a great example, having had its democracy destroyed by Allen Dulles and his CIA in the 1950s. But you can also take a more recent example like the 2009 coup in Honduras, backed by Hillary Clinton.

[worik]

As someone who does not live in the USA Iam very glad H Clinton did not become president

Impossible to know but I expect she would not have stayed out of the Syrian war.

It was she who was largely responsible for the debacle in Lybia

So Karen on using all that power and such a short term thinker

Trump was a catastrophe for you in the USA but not really for us.

Please elect an isolationist....

[miguelazo]

The DC establishment will do anything to prevent an isolationist from taking power-- that would begin the rollback of the sprawling empire from which they derive their largess. Trump was terrible domestically, and he was only isolationist in some areas (certainly less damaging overall than the Karen). He also appointed some usual suspects from the Deep State who are extremely interventionist (John Bolton, ffs).

[josephg]

The west doesn’t have a monopoly on evil. Plenty of Africans participated in the slave trade, and sold their brothers and sisters. And still do today.

There's something weirdly racist about the idea that only people in the west (or American diplomats) have any agency in the world. That America somehow is so powerful that y’all created the modern world. That local people and local leaders have no capacity for determining their own future.

That corruption in the police in South Africa is America’s fault. That the problem of gangs in Mexico was created by the US and that the Mexican gang members are blameless when they decapitate people. That Americans were the people who voted in Bolsenaro. Or the west are responsible for Japanese aggression in WW2.

Maybe ending colonial ideas starts at home.