Michelle Curtis is an AI rater who works for the data company Appen, which is subcontracted by Google to evaluate the outputs of the tech giant’s AI products and search algorithm. AI raters like Curtis provide crucial feedback to help develop chatbots, search engines, social-media feeds, and targeted-advertising systems. However, the job is grueling, underpaid, and poorly defined, with little guidance and not enough time to do a thorough job. Curtis is given a few sentences or paragraphs of vague instructions and as little as a few minutes to fully absorb them before the time allotted to complete the task is up.
