Quiz

The Low-Paid Workers Who Make AI Go

Also: A bot lets young adults text with their 60-year-old selves; when nonprofits should let volunteers call dibs on tasks; and how hard times affect political beliefs and preferences

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1 of 5

A vast army of global workers is used to train AI systems so they can be useful. (Amazon’s MTurk is the dominant hiring service.) Many workers are paid as little as $2 an hour, which underpins platforms achieving valuations of tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars. The result:
Quality data from an unfair labor market.
Data quality concerns because some workers feel mistreated.

Read on: Notably, a hiring platform, Prolific, which sets a minimum wage of $8 an hour, appears to produce higher-quality data and workers using it feel less mistreated.

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Among the advances enabled by AI is a bot — https://futureyou.life/ — researchers built which allows young people to text with their 60-year-old selves. Early results suggest that:
A chat with one’s older self increased positive mindsets, such as participants’ level of agency, optimism and self-esteem, but didn’t move the needle on negative feelings like anxiety.
It reduced negative emotions like anxiety but didn’t help boost positive vibes.
It didn’t alter emotions either negative or positive.

Read on: The Future You bot’s ability to impact negative emotions seems to be related to its impact on subjects’ ability to connect with their future selves, a topic of long-standing research.

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3 of 5

Many nonprofits that rely on donated labor allow volunteers to call dibs on certain tasks, such as a particular food delivery route, giving the volunteer certainty and food recipients a familiar face. Is there a downside to dibs?
No, it’s always the best approach.
It can constrain growth as volunteers fail to take up new tasks, some more crucial than existing work.
It can discourage new volunteers from joining — all the good jobs are claimed.
B and C.

Read on: When there are plenty of tasks available and lots of volunteers, dibs isn’t necessary, researchers contend. When volunteers and tasks are few, dibs can help provide stability. If some tasks are more in demand than others, then it can be best to allow adoption only for the less popular tasks, while using the availability of popular tasks to help grow the platform.

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4 of 5

A survey of 77 research papers finds that voters who experience difficult economic times:
Move their beliefs and preferences to the right, politically.
Move to the left.
Don’t change — beliefs and preferences are unaltered by economic experience.

Read on: Economic shocks experienced during young adulthood are much more likely to have long-lasting impacts on preferences and beliefs than those that happen later in life.

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5 of 5

Seeking the best model to minimize both deaths and economic disruption from COVID-19, researchers settled on:
Perpetual vaccinations without social distancing.
No continuing vaccinations coupled with a resumption of near-absolute social distancing.
Resumed strict social distancing with perpetual vaccinations.

Read on: The model never eliminates COVID-19 deaths entirely but allows the economy to progress with little impact. Those who don’t comply with the vaccine regimen would likely account for the majority of deaths.