[HN Gopher] The Emotional Labor Behind AI Intimacy (2025) [pdf]
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The Emotional Labor Behind AI Intimacy (2025) [pdf]
Related: https://www.404media.co/ai-is-african-intelligence-the-
worke... (https://archive.ph/yS8xb)
Author : beepbooptheory
Score : 49 points
Date : 2026-03-12 16:12 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (data-workers.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (data-workers.org)
| mbrumlow wrote:
| > he started his second job as the human labor behind AI sex bots
|
| This makes no sense. AI sex bots don't need humans texting and
| role playing.
|
| I don't think whoever wrote this article understands what AI is.
|
| Note the fist job of describing what was in the video seems like
| somebody building a AI dataset.
| heraldgeezer wrote:
| Yea, sounds like a typical media piece to evoke emotion. "oh no
| the poor africans"
|
| What is an "AI sex bot" ?
|
| Because ChatGTP, Claude, Gemini, Grock and Mistral can all
| ERP...
| tartuffe78 wrote:
| You must not see Facebook ads. Every other one is for an "AI
| Girlfriend" no matter how many I hide.
| heraldgeezer wrote:
| Correct. Never on Facebook, don't have the app. On a
| browser I always use AdBlock.
| antonvs wrote:
| You're being targeted, presumably based on your traffic
| profile. Unless you're talking about ads actually on
| Facebook, in which case your problem is that you're using
| Facebook.
| tartuffe78 wrote:
| Yea I use facebook marketplace to sell stuf
| kristopolous wrote:
| Jason certainly does [1]. The commercial bots seamlessly
| traverse between AI, auto-respond and human.
|
| It's very much an ensemble method. That's why people pay for it
| over just downloading an abliterated model from hf with system
| prompt hacking. Go and try it, the SOTA of role-playing models
| still have a lot to be desired
|
| [1] https://computerhistory.org/profile/jason-koebler/
| Ukv wrote:
| > The commercial bots seamlessly traverse between AI, auto-
| respond and human. It's very much an ensemble method.
|
| This seems unlikely to me, given it'd increase costs and the
| response times would make it obvious.
|
| The messages presented in the original source appear to be
| people expecting to be talking to a real person, likely on a
| dating app. The relation to AI is only speculative, and
| mostly in the direction of "my messages may be used to train
| a chatbot to replace my job of deceiving people" - which is
| plausible.
|
| > That's why people pay for it over just downloading an
| abliterated model from hf with system prompt hacking.
|
| I'd assume convenience, fine-tuning, and using a larger model
| than it's feasible for most people to run locally.
| dang wrote:
| (We've since changed the URL from https://www.404media.co/ai-
| is-african-intelligence-the-worke... to the essay it
| references, which was written by Michael Geoffrey Asia himself
| and goes much deeper into the topic. I've put a reference to
| the profile article in the toptext.)
| 3rodents wrote:
| "Actually Indians" is a meme for a reason
|
| https://ia.acs.org.au/article/2025/the-company-whose--ai--wa...
| The company whose 'AI' was actually 700 humans in India
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/amazons-just-walk-out-actual...
| Amazon's Just Walk Out technology relies on hundreds of workers
| in India watching you shop
|
| https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/former-nate-ceo-human-worke...
| Former nate CEO who used human workers instead of AI allegedly
| defrauded investors lured by new tech of millions
| renewiltord wrote:
| Phone sex line guy upset he had to do phone sex. What.
| klueinc wrote:
| Appaled at the lack of empathy for labellers from other comments
| here.
| Beestie wrote:
| I read the 404 article and its nauseating - the story of the
| young man from Africa is very unpleasant. We all know the pr0n
| industry is a thing but this is off the rails.
| guitarlimeo wrote:
| Yeah same. Anything seems to go if it means the next version of
| $HOT_LLM_MODEL is improved.
| fluoridation wrote:
| Good, good. Very virtuous of you.
|
| What exactly are you asking for, just some commiserative
| platitudes? I don't think anyone is under the false impression
| that these are awesome jobs, but the fact is, they _are_ jobs.
| The people doing them are getting paid to do them. Why would
| data labellers be more deserving of sympathy than any other
| type of office worker?
| klueinc wrote:
| Calling traumatizing data work a 'normal office job' is a
| lazy reach that confuses a paycheck with an excuse to ignore
| what it actually does to people.
| fluoridation wrote:
| No one in this thread has used the word "normal" besides
| you, so you're responding to something no one said. I
| called it an office job. Are you contending that it's not
| one?
|
| Setting that aside, maybe this type of job in particular is
| traumatizing. And? What do you want done about it?
| d0able wrote:
| Would have liked to see a clearer call for action other than
| "regulation" - what exactly would the author want to regulate and
| what are the downstream effects?
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(page generated 2026-03-12 23:01 UTC)