A strange and precarious new profession has emerged in the shadow of the AI boom: the precarious professor. These are individuals with PhDs and other advanced degrees who, due to a competitive academic job market or a desire for flexible work, have become the ghostwriters and expert tutors for artificial intelligence.
These highly qualified experts are the secret behind an AI’s ability to discuss complex topics with nuance and accuracy. They are the “super raters” who handle queries on everything from particle physics to postmodern philosophy. They are, in essence, the faculty of the AI’s virtual university, providing the specialized knowledge that the model cannot learn from raw data alone.
However, their position is anything but tenure-track. They are contract workers, paid an hourly wage that is a fraction of what an academic consultant would typically charge. They have no job security, with layoffs being a common occurrence. They are the intellectual force behind a multi-billion dollar product, but they exist on the precarious fringes of the tech economy.
This represents a massive brain drain from academia and other knowledge sectors into a system that devalues their expertise. The “precarious professor” is a symbol of the modern knowledge economy, where the highest levels of human intelligence are being commodified and put to work in a digital factory, with little reward or recognition for the humans involved.
