Of course images are not relevant to ChatGPT (I never specified ChatGPT), but to other models being trained by OpenAI.
From the article:
"That month, Sama began pilot work for a separate project for OpenAI: collecting sexual and violent images—some of them illegal under U.S. law—to deliver to OpenAI."
I feel like comments here are too focused on the $2 per hour aspect and not enough on the emotional abuse that this labour entails.
Sure, maybe it's an "average wage", but the people performing this work are suffering mental trauma because for hours upon hours they are subjected to reading stories and viewing images of sexual abuse, assault, gore. The people performing this sort of extremely difficult emotional labour should be taken care of. It is disgusting for OpenAI to pay so little and at the same time have such little respect for humanity and decency.
Please read Nuclear War: A Scenario, a book by Annie Jacobsen that discusses the insanity of nuclear war.