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Comment by bmitc | Hacker News Reader

But are the companies / people in Kenya paying that $1.25 average because they can’t afford to pay more? OpenAI can afford to pay more, but they’re just taking advantage of a less robust economy. Just because someone benefits from something doesn’t mean they aren’t being taken advantage of.

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The point of bringing jobs to Kenya is that they can pay less. If you don't see that as a benefit, why should I, a business, go to the trouble of working with a Kenyan company rather than just do it locally?

I could pay a Kenyan $17 an hour, or I could pay a Kansan instead and get US government benefits. The same applies at every payment level. Your logic fails the moment you realize that not every person/worker on earth is equal.

Insisting on this sort of articles just goes to show how sheltered these offended people are. I live in the third world and I know people who are thankful to Coca Cola for their "$2 wages."

Do you think then, that they deserve to be mentally scarred without any support and paid less than the minimum wage for a receptionist, on the basis that they are not "equal" to us?

This is a nice sentiment, but I think the answer is way more nuanced. You can't just roll into a developing economy and pay way over market without also disrupting the local economy and the people that live there. Imagine some similar situation in America, where for some reason, an international business comes in and pays 10-30X the market rate as similar businesses in the area, for the same product. The new jobs become highly (and potentially dangerously) desirable, other similar business go under because they can't keep up with the wage growth, etc.

To remain stable, economic growth must be slow and steady. The alternative is you simply don't go to Kenya, rather, you go somewhere else, and Kenyans get $0/hour.

It’s not a sentiment. It’s the definition of taking advantage of. Of course there are various arguments for justifications, but it doesn’t change the situation.

I also didn’t suggest anything like paying way over market.

So then what? If paying $2/hour is taking advantage, and paying over market isn't part of your solution...what is the solution? Not hire people in Kenya?

Also...yes it is a sentiment (a view of or attitude toward a situation or event; an opinion). Our opinions about what constitutes "taking advantage" are different. Saying otherwise doesn't make your argument more compelling.

The concern about danger really does not follow your hypothetical situation. Anyway, our view of capitalism would suggest that the failure of companies that use labor less efficiently is a net good.

I think the question we are all considering is why OpenAI behaves differently overseas than they might when trying to poach a smart engineer from a competitor in the Us.

> OpenAI can afford to pay more, but they’re just taking advantage of a less robust economy.

This is a bad take. Globalization (what you call "taking advantage") raised a billion people out of abject poverty in the last few decades.

When a company pays more than the prevailing wage, they're doing good and deserve kudos. Expecting economic deals with less developed countries to be driven by charity (which is what you're advocating for) rather than mutual benefit is A) paternalistic and demeaning, and B) cannot possibly be the basis of sustainable economic gains for developing countries.

OpenAI did pay more. They paid 12.50. The employees doing the labeling not even getting half of that is awful and they were definitely taken advantage of.

Why do you think Kenya's economy is any less robust? The per-capita GDP has increased fivefold in the past two decades. It's a fraction of the income level of the US, but it's a robust, dynamic, and growing economy.

(And I think most of what you wrote is based on similar stereotypes)

Robust was probably the wrong word, but I couldn’t capture the right word. But notice I did say “less”.

What stereotypes?

I can think of few better outcomes than someone "taking advantage of" 200,000 people living in Kibera slum in Nairobi by giving them $10/day desk jobs. Or some of the poorer rural populations. Or the hundreds of thousands some of the refugee camps.

That would be transformational.

> Just because someone benefits from something doesn’t mean they aren’t being taken advantage of.

Doesn't it? If you have some kind of objective measure of fairness, I would like to hear it.

It looks like OpenAI is paying $12.50/hr for the work, but only ~10% of it makes it to the workers.

If the alternative is paying them comparable American wage, they would just hire Americans.

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