On a May evening, a calendar invite titled “Project Sandbox Kickoff” popped up in the inbox of some AI training contractors who worked for Uber.
It was a surprise for some of them, since they hadn’t heard from the company in months.
“I thought, ‘This is the job I had heard back about in December, and now they’re finally getting back to me,'” one of the contractors told Business Insider. He had been approved to start working for Uber in December, but hadn’t received work since then.
For years, Uber delivered passengers and burritos using drivers who are independent contractors. Now, Uber is expanding its gig-work model into white-collar jobs, like training AI for clients — part of the company’s bid to become a “platform for work,” as CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said last year.
It’s entering a competitive field, with companies like Mercor and Snorkel AI specializing in AI training work. Uber has been aggressively recruiting contractors with PhDs to do this work since late last year, Business Insider previously reported.
The jobs are appealing since they often have high hourly pay rates, Guggenheim Securities analyst Taylor Manley told Business Insider.
“A lot of AI engineers probably have better earnings potential through that format versus traditional full-time employment,” Manley said.
Four workers — two current and two who were recently let go by Uber — said the job paid a higher hourly rate than similar AI training positions they previously held. The workers started their contracts with Uber and Google between last December and May. Three of the contractors worked on projects for Google, including Project Magi, the search giant’s effort to add AI replies to search results.
Chaotic scheduling, sudden changes like the contractor who started getting work from Uber months after being onboarded, and a lack of training, meanwhile, hampered their day-to-day experience at Uber, the contractors said.
Uber and Google did not respond to requests for comment.
Good pay, tough scheduling
The contractors Business Insider spoke with said that they earned between $50 and $150 an hour working for Uber AI Solutions, its AI training business. Three of the workers previously had similar AI-training contract roles at other companies that paid as much as $30 per hour, they said.
Uber told two of the workers in an email that they would have flexible schedules — a key benefit for many gig workers — and that they would be expected to work between 20 and 40 hours each week, with management deciding how many hours they would receive.
The caveat: The workers had to work at least 70% of their hours between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. PT “to facilitate real-time collaboration and regular standup meetings,” according to the email.
Google, the client, would assign each worker hours week to week, one contractor who managed a team of other Uber contractors said. Weekly hours were generally given out on Sundays for the week ahead.
While some contractors received close to a full-time allotment, others received zero hours and were told to check in the following week in case they were assigned hours. That system was different from the gigs that two of the workers had at other AI training companies, which included working a consistent number of hours each week.
Once on the job, the contractors said, they were expected to get to work right away. Neither Uber nor Google provided training on how to vet queries or annotate data — a major difference compared with other AI training jobs, two of the workers said.
One of the workers, who previously trained AI for Google as a contractor for another company, told Business Insider that the orientation process lasted days and involved identity verification, signing non-disclosure agreements, and classes on how to do the work.
At the Uber gig, they received “no orientation, no real training on anything,” the contractor said.
Termination comes suddenly
While a job description sent to contractors indicated that their contracts would last three months, some said their time with Uber and Google ended sooner. Uber terminated some of its AI contractors working on a Google project about a month into their three-month contracts in the fall of last year, Business Insider reported in November.
This year, the contractor who had experience training AI for Google through another company was terminated at their Uber gig about a week after starting, according to an email shared with Business Insider. The email didn’t include a reason for the termination.
Another worker, whom Uber recruited and onboarded last fall for a job that would pay $150 an hour, never received any hours. In December, he received an email saying the project he was recruited for had ended, and that Uber would reach out if it had more work for him.
In May, Uber emailed him with a new work offer: He could record short clips of himself speaking in different environments, such as a noisy coffee shop or a quiet library, for $10 each.
The contractor said he’s been completing the tasks since they are related to his AI experience, though it isn’t the job he initially signed up.
“At least it’s something for my résumé,” he said.
The worker who received the sudden meeting invite in May said the lack of clarity has continued since he started working for Uber. At least one person on his team has been terminated since he started the gig, he said. Business Insider confirmed the termination.
No one at Uber or Google mentioned the termination after it happened, the contractor said. He found out from colleagues outside work channels.
“Nothing has been discussed whatsoever,” the contractor said.
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