In July 2023, I received a LinkedIn message from a Scale AI recruiter inviting me to apply as a legal subject matter expert for Remotasks, a Scale AI-owned platform that precedes Outlier.
I was onboarded by early August, but didn’t do much work on the platform until March or April of 2024. They were offered daily bonuses if they worked a certain number of hours. The AI job became more attractive than the content creation job I was doing because it offered a higher pay scale with regular bonuses and weekly payments, and I didn’t have to look for customers on a regular basis. I put the travel agency franchise on the back burner.
Since then, AI training has become my main source of income. I typically work about 30-35 hours a week and supplement that with online writing.
Although I started out as a professional in the legal field, I had rarely worked on law-focused projects. Instead, we tackle a wide range of common non-STEM topics that require specialized multimedia prompt engineering, AI response evaluation skills, and quality assurance work.
I worked on the Mindrift platform for a very short time last year. However, almost all of my AI work was using Remotasks until this summer, and then Outlier. Currently, the majority of my AI training work uses the Mercor AI platform.
Outlier paid me $45 an hour and then $40 an hour. Currently, rates with them range from $35 to $50, but the rate is set to drop to $21.16 after a set amount of time, which is never enough to complete the task, so the effective rate is always lower than the starting or stated rate. That’s another reason I generally avoid working there now.
Salaries at Mercor vary, but the projects I’m currently working on are $45 and $45.50 an hour.
The benefits of freelancing on these platforms include the opportunity to work in cutting-edge industries and learn valuable skills. The salary is also attractive, taking into consideration experience and skills. Another benefit is the teamwork with extremely smart, funny, and talented colleagues.
There’s also bass. There is no job security and some projects are short-term, so you must continually apply for new projects. However, project extensions are frequent, and project leaders who have done a good job often refer you to new projects.
Work can become monotonous, and some projects can be poorly run, leading to confusion and frustration.
A spokesperson for Scale AI told Business Insider that Outlier provides wages and estimated hours to contractors at the beginning of a project. “If contributors indicate that certain tasks are regularly taking longer than expected, we will review those tasks and adjust as necessary.”
