READ THE STATEMENT · THE PEOPLE WHO TRAIN AI
Experts Taught ChatGPT Their Jobs at $50 an Hour. One Said They Were Replacing Themselves.
(Handshake, which ran the project, has refused to pay some contractors on OpenAI work. “There is no appeal process,” one email said.)
By Ethan Ward · Oct. 18, 2026
OpenAI is teaching ChatGPT work most people never see it do, from animal husbandry and farming to music composition and commercial flying. Handshake AI, a data-labeling company that started as a job site for young professionals, runs the work for OpenAI under a project called Stagecraft. Business Insider reviewed dozens of pages of the project’s documents in April. These lines come from Handshake’s training guide for the freelancers.
THE STATEMENT · HANDSHAKE AI · STAGECRAFT TRAINING GUIDE · AS QUOTED BY BUSINESS INSIDER, APRIL 2026
The focus is on “knowledge work, not manual labor.” (1. A list of 439 occupations went to contractors in a spreadsheet anyone with the link could open, Business Insider found. It showed contractors’ personal email addresses.)
The data collected would help “map economically relevant tasks and evaluate the model’s capabilities.” (2. “We all were aware that we were basically training AI to replace us,” a contractor told Business Insider.)
Business Insider’s report on Stagecraft, as excerpted by beSpacific.
SCREENSHOT: BESPACIFIC, APRIL 2, 2026
Our notes
About 3,000 to 4,000 freelancers had worked on Stagecraft, at least $50 an hour, Business Insider reported. Each built a persona and tasks that reflect real work in their field. Their work went through two reviews at Handshake, one by an industry expert, and a third at OpenAI.
In January, Wired reported that OpenAI had asked contractors to upload “real, on-the-job work” they had “actually done” in past and current jobs, such as documents, spreadsheets, and code, with confidential details removed. An OpenAI spokesperson declined to comment, TechCrunch reported.
In March, Business Insider reported that Handshake had suspended contractors on OpenAI projects without warning and refused to pay some of them for work they had done. One support email said, “This decision is final. There is no appeal process.” In one contractor’s suit over unpaid wages, a court ruled the contractor was owed $6,475.
OpenAI didn’t respond to Business Insider’s requests for comment on Stagecraft. Handshake declined to comment on the pay disputes. Business Insider reported in April that the project was ongoing. We couldn’t confirm whether it still is.
What you can do
Before you take AI training work, save the contract and the project rules, and keep your own record of your hours and tasks as you go. If pay is withheld, that record is your evidence.
If a platform won’t pay for work you did, you can sue in small claims court, as one Handshake contractor did. Another won $6,475 in an unpaid wages case.
Before you upload work from a past job, check what your old employer’s agreements say. You decide what counts as confidential, and you carry the risk if you get it wrong.
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How we reported this
The statement is from Handshake’s training guide for Stagecraft, as quoted by Business Insider (Shubhangi Goel, April 2026, read through its republication on AOL and the beSpacific excerpt of April 2). We also read Business Insider’s March 4, 2026, report on withheld pay (Goel and Grace Kay) and TechCrunch’s Jan. 10, 2026, report on Wired’s reporting, all checked Oct. 18.
Rejected, suspended, or flagged for no reason? Tell me what happened.
The notice rarely says AI. It says “not selected” or “account suspended.” I read every tip myself.
