alt.hn

3/12/2026 at 4:12:04 PM

The Emotional Labor Behind AI Intimacy (2025) [pdf]

 https://data-workers.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/The-Emotional-Labor-Behind-AI-Intimacy-1.pdf

by beepbooptheory

3/12/2026 at 8:20:43 PM

Appaled at the lack of empathy for labellers from other comments here.

by klueinc

3/12/2026 at 8:26:22 PM

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.

by Beestie

3/12/2026 at 8:38:46 PM

Yeah same. Anything seems to go if it means the next version of $HOT_LLM_MODEL is improved.

by guitarlimeo

3/12/2026 at 8:25:33 PM

[dead]

by OGEnthusiast

3/12/2026 at 9:11:40 PM

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?

by fluoridation

3/12/2026 at 9:39:46 PM

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.

by klueinc

3/12/2026 at 10:23:08 PM

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?

by fluoridation

3/13/2026 at 6:26:55 PM

Seems to be a whole class of people that when they come across a story that should be gut wrenching have to come up with a reason why its not and get angry with whoever brought it up. "How dare you make me feel bad? Its obviously not bad!"

by whattheheckheck

3/12/2026 at 8:27:22 PM

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?

by d0able

3/12/2026 at 7:19:23 PM

> 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.

by mbrumlow

3/12/2026 at 7:30:47 PM

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/

by kristopolous

3/12/2026 at 8:06:21 PM

> 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.

by Ukv

3/12/2026 at 8:10:42 PM

[dead]

by amazingwoww

3/12/2026 at 8:13:45 PM

“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

by 3rodents

3/12/2026 at 7:22:29 PM

[flagged]

by heraldgeezer

3/12/2026 at 7:30:55 PM

You must not see Facebook ads. Every other one is for an "AI Girlfriend" no matter how many I hide.

by tartuffe78

3/12/2026 at 8:40:01 PM

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.

by antonvs

3/12/2026 at 9:09:38 PM

Yea I use facebook marketplace to sell stuf

by tartuffe78

3/12/2026 at 8:01:43 PM

Correct. Never on Facebook, don't have the app. On a browser I always use AdBlock.

by heraldgeezer

3/12/2026 at 7:43:07 PM

Phone sex line guy upset he had to do phone sex. What.

by renewiltord