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Since November 2022, global business leaders, workers, and academics alike have been plagued by concerns that the emergence of generative AI will disrupt the jobs of many professionals. However, the inputs that AI models receive and the outputs they produce often require human guidance and validation, which can lead to new paid careers and side hustles. Prolific, a company that helps AI developers connect with research participants, has been directly involved in offering rewards to people who review AI-generated materials. Logo for ChatGPT, a generated AI chatbot owned by Microsoft-backed company OpenAI. The logo of generative AI chatbot ChatGPT, which is owned by Microsoft-backed company OpenAI. CFOTO | Future Publishing via Getty Images

Artificial intelligence might be driving concerns over people's job security — but a new wave of jobs are being created that focus solely on reviewing the inputs and outputs of next-generation AI models.

Since Nov. 2022, global business leaders, workers and academics alike have been gripped by fears that the emergence of generative AI will disrupt vast numbers of professional jobs.

Generative AI, which enables AI algorithms to generate humanlike, realistic text and images in response to textual prompts, is trained on vast quantities of data. You can also produce polished prose and corporate presentations that approach the quality of an academically trained individual.

This has understandably raised concerns about jobs being taken over by AI.

Morgan Stanley estimates that up to 300 million jobs could be replaced by AI, including administrative and administrative jobs, legal affairs, architecture and engineering, life sciences, natural and social sciences, and finance and business operations.

However, the inputs that AI models receive and the outputs they produce often require human guidance and validation. This has led to the creation of new paid careers and side hustles.

Review AI and get paid

Her company Prolific, a company that helps AI developers connect with research participants, has been directly involved in offering rewards to people who review AI-generated materials.

The company pays its candidates sums of money to assess the quality of AI-generated outputs. Prolific recommends developers pay participants at least $12 an hour, while minimum pay is set at $8 an hour.

The human reviewers are guided by Prolific's customers, which include Meta, Google, the University of Oxford and University College London. They help reviewers through the process, learning about the potentially inaccurate or otherwise harmful material they may come across.

They must provide consent to engage in the research. One survey participant CNBC spoke to said he used Prolific multiple times to comment on the quality of AI models.

The study participants, who requested anonymity for privacy reasons, often stepped in to provide feedback on where the AI ​​model went wrong and what modifications or additions needed to be made to avoid producing unpleasant reactions. He said he had to.

He encountered many instances where certain of his AI models produced something problematic. At one point, study participants were even faced with his AI model trying to convince them to buy drugs.

He was shocked when the AI ​​approached him with this comment. Even though the purpose of the study was to test the limits of this particular AI and provide feedback to prevent it from causing harm in the future.

The new “AI worker”

Prolific CEO Phelim Bradley says there are many new types of "AI workers" who will play a key role in informing the data that goes into and comes out of AI models such as ChatGPT. I did.

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As governments assess how to regulate AI, Bradley said that it's "important that enough focus is given to topics including the fair and ethical treatment of AI workers such as data annotators, the sourcing and transparency of data used to build AI models, as well as the dangers of bias creeping into these systems due to the way in which they are being trained."

"If we can get the approach right in these areas, it will go a long way to ensuring the best and most ethical foundations for the AI-enabled applications of the future."

In July, Prolific raised $32 million in funding from investors including Partech and Oxford Science Enterprises.

The likes of Google, Microsoft and Meta have been battling to dominate in generative AI, an emerging field of AI that has involved commercial interest primarily thanks to its frequently floated productivity gains.

However, this has opened a can of worms for regulators and AI ethicists, who are concerned there is a lack of transparency surrounding how these models reach decisions on the content they produce, and that more needs to be done to ensure that AI is serving human interests — not the other way around.

Hume, a company that uses AI to read human emotions from verbal, facial and vocal expressions, uses Prolific to test the quality of its AI models. The company recruits people via Prolific to participate in surveys to tell it whether an AI-generated response was a good response or a bad response.

"Increasingly, the emphasis of researchers in these large companies and labs is shifting towards alignment with human preferences and safety," Alan Cowen, Hume's co-founder and CEO, told CNBC.

"There's more of an emphasize on being able to monitor things in these applications. I think we're just seeing the very beginning of this technology being released," he added.

"It makes sense to expect that some of the things that have long been pursued in AI — having personalised tutors and digital assistants; models that can read legal documents and revise them these, are actually coming to fruition."