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Comment by ajmurmann | Hacker News Reader

It's not slavery though, since nobody is forced to take the job. This clearly was something Kenyan workers were happy to have as an option, otherwise they wouldn't have taken the job. If everyone did what OpenAI did and moved work like this to Kenya, salary would quickly go up. If few companies moved their work there, comp will stay low. It seems the low price is one of the main attractors right now. So shaming companies into paying more, likely will just move the work elsewhere and leave workers there with $0/hr.

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That’s some BS that we were fed about competitiveness. I used to buy that BS at some point. But these companies (and the people having them) have a choice and they do have enough money.

One of the companies I’m following now is Oxide (https://oxide.computer/careers). They pay everyone the same salary ($200k) regardless of position. It’s a bit extreme but am following them precisely for that. It’d be interesting to see how Oxide fares down the road.

It’s funny that some years ago that software developers were complaining that they were getting paid less because of politics and because people who talked controlled the businesses and the money. It’s funny because now that the table turned, most of them are doing the same thing.

Nothing funny about it, it’s called leverage, and realistically it’s not always a bad thing. The note up above about it not being slavery because it’s voluntary is really important. If someone is entering into an agreement willingly, that’s pretty good evidence at least (if not proof) that they expect or perceive it to be a mutually beneficial transaction. This can be the case regardless of some 3rd party’s (and especially a rich westerner’s) gut reaction that the wage is crazy low.

> If someone is entering into an agreement willingly, that’s pretty good evidence at least (if not proof) that they expect or perceive it to be a mutually beneficial transaction.

Respectfully, the existance, and the need, for minimum wage puts lie to this assumption. People need money to survive, and will take whatever job they can when they don't have one, even if it not for enough pay.

I'm not claiming this is the case here, but that this argument is badly flawed.

Not really? In a world with no minimum wage, working for sub-living wage is better than zero. That’s still beneficial compared to the alternative. So the analogous thing here, which I think is true, is that if you think it’s crazy people are accepting a job for $2, you ought to start looking for solutions amongst the jobs paying $1.99 and below.

That’s what minimum wage does. It eliminates the alternatives below the line, not above it.

> working for sub-living wage is better than zero

> That’s what minimum wage does. It eliminates the alternatives below the line, not above it.

You should go back and look at why minimum wage was established in the first place - so people could work and still have lives outside of work.

And frankly, the "option" of starving out on the street is not a real alternative we should even be including in our discussions in 2023. It smacks of treating poor folks as some subhuman species who has to earn their right to live from us.

Err, right. “The line” I’m referring to is below the wage itself, not below the poverty line or below the level required to live (the minimum wage being well below both of those in much of the country today).

No one is discussing that alternative. Not sure who you think is? We’re discussing whether a $2 wage in a country with an average wage of $1.50 is abusive.

My position is simply that 1) a wage in one country appearing low to the standards of a completely different country is not evidence of abusive employment; 2) people accepting those wages when they’re not coerced is evidence that the wages are not abuse, though it could also be evidence of other problems that preclude a better alternative.

> No one is discussing that alternative. Not sure who you think is?

From your own post:

> working for sub-living wage is better than zero.

Respectfully, I'm not interested in continuing. Have a great day.

It's telling that you had to remove the conditional from that excerpt you've taken. Rhetorically owned me and made zero progress on the actual conversation and problem we're trying to unpack together. You have a good day as well!

> It’d be interesting to see how Oxide fares down the road.

I have been hearing about Oxide since 2019 [1]. 3 years later, it seems they don't yet have paying customers that one can read about. And with a tag line like: "Servers as they should be" I'm inclined to ask: "Servers as they should be [by whom?]".

Is the demand for such ideal servers driven by engineers/sys admins or by businesses (i.e. businesses who are currently being served poorly by existing options in the market)?

Is the demand for such ideal servers enough to make them a sustainable business, especially with the enormous amounts they'll likely be pouring into R&D before they can bring a product to market that lives up to their ideals?

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21682360

When we started the company, we knew it would be a three year build -- and indeed, our first product is in the final stages of development (i.e. EMC/safety certification). We have been very transparent about our progress along the way[0][1][2][3][4][5][6][7] -- and our software is essentially all open source, so you can follow along there as well.[8][9][10]

If you are asking "does anyone want a rack-scale computer?" the (short) answer is: yes, they do. The on-prem market has been woefully underserved -- and there are plenty of folks who are sick of Dell/HPE/VMware/Cisco, to say nothing of those who are public cloud borne and wondering if they should perhaps own some of their own compute rather than rent it all.

[0] https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/holistic-bo...

[1] https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/the-oxide-s...

[2] https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/bringup-lab...

[3] https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/more-tales-...

[4] https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/another-lpc...

[5] https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/the-pragmat...

[6] https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/tales-from-...

[7] https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/the-sidecar...

[8] https://github.com/oxidecomputer/omicron

[9] https://github.com/oxidecomputer/propolis

[10] https://github.com/oxidecomputer/hubris

They outsource low paying jobs like "building their hardware" to other companies. I bet OpenAI content raters are also managed by a vendor, but even if not, the difference is smoke and mirrors.

Janitors at that company make $200k?

Probably everyone with roles that aren't part of the core business is outsourced. Am argument could be made that outsourcing is actually worth for the workers than earning less than highly skilled labor, but being a FTE and maybe get opportunity to grow.

You're right nobody is forcing them, they simply lack an alternative, some money is better than none, no matter what it costs, right?

OpenAI offered them work at $2/hour.

You and I offered them no work for no pay.

The workers have made clear they prefer OpenAI's offer.

We could tell the workers that we know what's best for them. Sitting here in my rich country with my six-figured job, I'm supposed to tell the workers they're wrong, they should have taken my offer instead?

It's a terrible incentive that helping people a little bit will get you criticism while helping not at all earns you no criticism. In fact, as non-helpers we get to sit and sanctimoniously criticize the people actually doing something.

Poverty and inequality are terrible. OpenAI should be ashamed that they just made it marginally better for some folks in Kenya instead of solving this massive problem in its entirety that has nothing to do with their company. /s

Why is that an OpenAI problem? It’s something the Kenyan government needs to solve. I fail to see why every company needs to subscribe to an SJW mindset.

They paid decent wages by Kenyan standards it seems. They did not force, exploit or abuse the workers.

It sounds like you're suggesting some different approach for how to calculate a wage offer. Can you elaborate?

Yes, some money is better than none. That is exactly why it is better. They are literally doing something whereas you are probably doing nothing (or much less than what they are doing).

https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-eth...

By your logic, you are more evil because you pay Kenyans $0.

> It's not slavery though, since nobody is forced to take the job.

Yes they are, that's what borders are: rent-seeking in the labor market.

I'm 100% in favor of open borders. However, what can OpenAI do about that?

I was just responding to the specific claim, but I think what they could do is pay as if they weren't leveraging borders to decrease wages. I'd rather solve the problem at the root than require such exceptionalism from them though, as that doesn't really seem scalable.

Not exploit closed borders. Everybody here is acting like they had no choice but to employ Kenyan workers specifically.

If there Kenyan workers would prefer not to have this job, they would quit. This is clearly a win/win for OpenAI and the Kenyan workers.

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