Venezuelan AI workers

As Venezuela’s economic crisis worsened and its currency became nearly worthless around 2018, educated Venezuelans signed up on AI-training and freelancing platforms to earn in U.S. dollars. 

They formed up to 75% of the workforce at companies like Mighty AI and Scale AI in 2018. Remotasks even created a special program to attract Venezuelan workers. 

They annotated all kinds of data to train AI tools, such as vision models, autonomous vehicles, and warehousing robots. They also moderated violent content and wrote articles to optimize websites for search.


“Every year, there have been fewer tasks,” said Fuentes, who moved to Colombia in 2019 from Cabimas, Venezuela. “If a task doesn’t come up, I’m just waiting, living with uncertainty. Days, weeks, even months can go by without anything coming up at all.”

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