AI Raters Train Their Replacements

Contract AI workers who grade chatbot answers are being used to train an automated 'rater' system that will replace them. After months of tighter deadlines and siloed work, hundreds were laid off, while unionization efforts reportedly drew retaliation. This shows how the human scaffolding behind AI can be rapidly automated away once it has taught the model to mimic its own judgments. — It spotlights a governance gap in AI’s labor supply chain where essential but disposable workers both ensure safety and enable their own automation, raising policy questions about oversight, union rights, and the reliability of AI-only evaluation.