Technology

For some time I worked for Microsoft on their Copilot AI (outsource, I did not know I was signing up to work for Microsoft).

I cannot tell you how many good translators Microsoft hires just to rate Copilot's responses in various languages. They often had interesting insights to share, but whenever I asked my managers where to put it, they said we don't care. It's just rated 1 to 5, and that's it. Nobody even cares about language-specific nuances.

Technically none of the translators are ever 'hired', let alone 'employed'. All the work is based on shit contracts through several proxies. Some people weren't even sure that they were doing work for Microsoft. Hell, as a junior manager even I never had contact with anybody from Microsoft. Only our seniors.

It's an overall incredibly depressing environment. Very knowledgeable and passionate people still try to do their jobs as well as possible and provide insightful feedback, despite the fact it's supposed to completely replace them. Only to be ignored and ghosted when a given language is deemed not worth the cost by microslop.

I was literally the only person who ever responded to translators labeled as no longer useful. Even though they still had their contracts active. And I know that, because several of them told me that. Nobody else bothered to even respond as people asked for any available jobs when struggling to make a living.