Tuesday, 10 March 2026
- The Laid-off Scientists and Lawyers Training AI to Steal Their Careers ★
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Josh Dieza, writing for The Verge & New York Magazine:
This is what concerns her more than the AI itself: that it’s bringing to knowledge work the sort of precarious platform labor that has transformed taxi driving and food delivery. Meanwhile, she watches in horror the desperate gratitude of her colleagues as they rejoice at the 7PM announcement of incoming work.
“How long are these tasks expected to last?” one worker asked in Slack.
“I’m wondering too, I’d like to know whether I can sleep or not.”
With no answer forthcoming, they swapped tips on how to stave off sleep.
This piece was unsettlingly enlightening. I had no idea how perverse some AI companies have become. Being let go from your job because of AI is horrifying as-is, but then working to train the very AI that replaced the work you once did? And to top it off, losing work again as the AI you’ve trained has become good enough to no longer need you to train it. I had to walk away from the screen for a bit after reading this one.