Mathenge obtained his degree from Nairobi’s Africa Nazarene University in 2018 and was quickly hired for a job with Sama, a company working for tech giants such as OpenAI. His work was to review lidar images and subsequently label people, other vehicles and objects in order to better understand their surroundings. After this project finished, he was transferred to OpenAI, where he was faced with explicit texts for the purpose of training the artificial intelligence.
He and the other workers were allegedly paid $1 per hour – far below the minimum mentioned by OpenAI which was $12.50. Out of desperation and the economic decline due to the global pandemic, Mathenge and his team felt obligated to work despite the low wages without having the opportunity to weigh the cost beforehand. This job, however, had a severe impact on their mental health. Mophat Okinyi, a colleague of Mathenge’s, experienced insomnia, depression, anxiety and even panic attacks due to the constant exposure to disturbing content. All of this took a toll on his personal life, leading to his split with his wife.
OpenAI claims that it was cooperating with Sama’s commitments to provide its employees with a wellness program, counseling and the ability to opt out without facing penalization. While Sama affirmed this, Mathenge and Okinyi felt that the counseling provided was insufficient and unprofessional. OpenAI stated that it has sought more information from Sama which then informed the tech giant that it would be ending its content moderation services.
Despite the hardships they endured, Mathenge and his colleagues built a sense of accomplishment. Thanks to their efforts, ChatGPT – a messaging bot – became notably safe and smart, efficiently refusing to produce explicit scenes and warning people of potentially dangerous situations. Mathenge expressed his pride for their work, even though he is still struggling with the trauma he suffered throughout the process.
Sama is a technology company focused on providing powerful artificial intelligence solutions to its customers. It has worked with giants such as OpenAI and has expanded to multiple countries around the world. Their services revolve around annotation, AI models and automation.
Mathenge is an AI annotation service contractor originally from Nairobi, Kenya. He graduated from the Africa Nazarene University where he earned his degree in the year 2018. After this, he was recruited by Sama and transferred to OpenAI, where he was exposed to explicit texts meant to train the artificial intelligence models. During his work with Sama he was part of the team giving feedback to help the AI systems optimize their performances. Mathenge has since gone on to become a prominent part of the African Content Moderators Union and is recognized for his work with ChatGPT.
