I refused to train the AI that could replace me - Rest of World
I refused to train the AI that could replace me - Rest of World
摘要: Ideas
I refused to train the AI that could replace me
AI companies are paying highly educated workers to teach machines the judgment they spent year
正文
I refused to train the AI that could replace me
AI companies are paying highly educated workers to teach machines the judgment they spent years developing — even when those systems could eventually replace them.
James Maisiri
James Maisiri has a Ph.D. in industrial sociology from the University of Johannesburg.
3 September 2026
Rest of World/iStock
Rest of World/iStock
James Maisiri
3 September 2026
I refused to train the AI that could replace me
James Maisiri
Arguments, opinions and essays from a global perspective.
After completing a Ph.D. earlier this year on technologies such as artificial intelligence reshaping agricultural work in South Africa, I was ready to start an academic career. I imagined that I would teach students, supervise research, and shape the next generation of scholars. But my first job offer did not come from a university. It was from a recruiter, who invited me to train an AI system to design assessments, teach undergraduate students, and mark essays. In short, I was being asked to transfer everything I had learned over the last decade to AI.
I agreed to an interview. You may ask: Why would anyone agree to train an AI model in the very skills they took years to acquire? The answer, in part, is the socioeconomic reality in South Africa. The role offered 600 rand ($37) an hour in a country where the national minimum wage is 30.23 rand ($2) an hour, and where youth unemployment stood at 47.4% in the second quarter of 2026. So when the opportunity to earn a livelihood collides with your principle on helping a technology that can compete with you one day, what do you do?
I am not the only one
who had to consider that trade-off.
When the opportunity to earn a livelihood collides with your principle on helping a technology that can compete with you, what do you do?”
People are increasingly
being hired to train
the very AI systems that will perform their jobs one day. Highly skilled writers are b