Some contractors who worked on OpenAI projects say Handshake AI is withholding thousands of dollars in pay

"Five contractors who worked on various OpenAI projects told Business Insider that Handshake suspended their accounts without warning between the end of December and January, and four of those contractors were not paid for their work. The workers said they went to log in to work and learned their accounts had been suspended."

"In correspondence with Handshake support seen by Business Insider, one contractor was told that they violated one or more of the three platform requirements: There were 'discrepancies' in background credentials provided; the time taken to complete tasks was three to four times higher than benchmarks; and tasking was done from a non-US location, which was not allowed."

"San Francisco-based Handshake AI expanded from a job platform aimed at young professionals to the data-labeling industry. It's part of a slew of startups that pay hundreds of thousands of part-time contractors around the world to filter, rank, and train AI responses for the world's largest AI companies."

Handshake AI, a San Francisco-based startup in the data-labeling industry, has suspended contractor accounts and withheld payments totaling thousands of dollars. Five contractors working on OpenAI projects reported account suspensions between December and January without warning. The company cited contract violations including background credential discrepancies, task completion times exceeding benchmarks, and work performed outside the US. Dozens of other contractors have shared similar experiences on Reddit, and the company faces lawsuits from two contractors over unpaid wages. Data annotators in this industry typically earn hundreds of dollars per hour for filtering and ranking AI responses used to train models like ChatGPT.

Read at Business Insider