Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI

by Karen Hao

One group of eight workers in North Africa said Scale reduced their pay by more than a third in a matter of months. At least one worker was left with negative pending payments, suggesting that he owed Scale money. When the group attempted to organize against the changes, the company threatened to ban anyone engaging in “revolutions and protests.” Nearly all who spoke to me were booted off the platform. The Scale spokesperson said the company does not suspend workers for concerns about pay, only violations of Community Guidelines. Scale’s payment systems, chronically underinvested in by its US engineering teams, were also riddled with bugs that often left workers unable to cash out. As Scale grew, these practices would grate on full-time employees who worked most closely with these workers; many sought to advocate on behalf of the workers to Scale leadership for better working conditions and wages, and basic guarantees on payments, only to leave after exhausting themselves, or to be pushed out of the company. The spokesperson said it has since “significantly improved” its platform stability.