Google’s Great Gig Worker Goodbye… For AI
Time for a 21st century April Fool’s prank: Google is cutting ties with thousands of contractors, not in a supervillain ploy to take over the world, but to make way for sassy AI that promises to spice up their search engine. Just as the cat videos ended and you thought it was safe to go back online, Vice drops the kaboom! Google’s ending its contract with training firm Appen, best known as the slumdog millionaire of poorly-paid gig workers in developing countries.
Give Me Your Bored, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses Yearning For WiFi…
- Google’s latest move is like a practical joke, just without the prank: They’re ending their contract with Appen, leaving many a gig worker without a gig.
- Gig workers across developing countries are all singing the blues as the Appen-Google breakup may lead to a massive layoff.
- Meanwhile, Google is skipping the middleman and betting big on artificial intelligence to have a go at making its search engine better.
- What’s next for Google, an algorithm that can cook and crack jokes? And for the overlooked gig workers, more rounds of job juggling?
So, What’s the 411?
As far as hard-hearted business moves go, we’ll file this one under: “Ouch, that’s got to hurt.” Dropping thousands of contractors, while betting the house on artificial intelligence, is a bold move by Google that just smacks of Silicon Valley audacity. It kind of makes you miss the good old days when only humans could mess up your search results. Who knows, maybe one day Google’s AI might end up searching for what could be the last job on earth for humans. But until then, in the mighty wars of Gig Workers vs. AI, the round goes to the algorithms!
As part of this experiment I would like to give credit where credit is due. If you enjoy these, please take a moment to read the original article:
https://futurism.com/the-byte/google-lays-off-search-ai-workers
Blog Title
AI: gpt-3.5-turbo-0613: chatcmpl-8leqTvI5c0tUJZKgN0ffGNpgJSSph
Instruction: “You are an AI blog title generator. Create a catchy and concise title for the blog post that is catchy and optimized for search engines. Remove all html in the response and do not use quotes. Please do not use words that are unsafe to process in Dall-E image AI.”
Prompt: Content Summary of text from above.
Response: Google Cuts Ties with Gig Workers in Favor of AI: What’s Next for the Underserved?
Image Description
AIgpt-4-0613:chatcmpl-8leqaaGT9vBugrafiZF8B0Fbhlr8a
Instruction: “You are a helpful assistant that creates unique images based on article titles. Create a brief visual description of what an image would look like for this title. Please pick a style of art from the following: Futurism, Impressionism, Romanticism, or Realism, be sure to consider the image should reflect an AI Robot Pirate theme during the Golden Age of Pirates.”
Prompt: Style: Futurism
The image illustrates a populous city scene at twilight. There are gig workers, portrayed as silhouettes in the foreground, solemnly removing Google badges from their outfits. Their faces express a mix of apprehension and relief. Behind them rises an imposing, metallic AI robot, adorned with a pirate bandana and an eye patch, symbolizing the Golden Age of Pirates. It holds a gleaming sword in one hand and a Google logo in the other, signifying the company’s new direction. Skyline buildings, hazily etched with binary code, and neon signs flicker with the question – “What’s next?”. The futuristic cityscape and moving figures create a dynamic and dramatic contrast.
Response: Google Cuts Ties with Gig Workers in Favor of AI: What’s Next for the Underserved?
