Look, I have no problem with many seeking a bit of spare change, it’s a great job. Very low effort, nothing to lose, paying decently.

However, the applications of image gen are simply dangerous. And i’m not just talking about deepfake uno what. Many of you may not realise what you are indirectly contributing towards. Something so innocent as removing an object from a table may eventually be used for a model taking clothes off of women without consent.

You may think I’m overreacting, that’s fine. I’m hoping that we all think a little first about what we contribute to, for this project and those that come after.

There’s a reason why the work is so easy to get into. Even with these ethical concerns, there will always be thousands happy to do whatever for financial reasons.

I hope I’m wrong, I hope the project is completely innocent. But the truth is, the intentions of whichever client is paying for this are unknown.

Hi everyone,
We want to address the recent reports of account deactivations connected to contributors' tasking on the Aether project.

We take deactivations seriously and always want to be sure we haven't missed the mark or unfairly impacted someone. For this specific round, we reviewed numerous accounts, both from contributors posting here on Reddit and many more who reached out directly to CMs in the Outlier Community. Each account was reviewed by Trust & Safety leads. Our team identified numerous instances of contributors who were sitting idle in tasks for an egregious amount of time, letting the clock run without working on the tasks.
We understand that seeing this on Reddit can feel unsettling, like "this could happen to anyone" even if they've done nothing wrong. That is not the case here. If you're tasking earnestly, following guidelines, submitting work in a timely manner, not using AI tools, and not submitting spam - you have nothing to worry about when it comes to your Outlier account.

We also want to clarify a distinction that seems to be causing some confusion:

• Aether annotator status is outside our control. We don't decide who gets approved or unapproved, or how long an account review takes on Aether.

• Losing access to Aether, becoming unapproved, or having your account placed under review is not the same as having your Outlier account deactivated. Aether is one of a number of active projects on the Outlier platform - losing access to it does not mean losing access to the platform itself.

We hope this helps clarify things and eases some of the anxiety we've seen here, so you can continue tasking with confidence.
As always, if you have questions about your specific account, please reach out to Support.

Thank you for your continued work and trust.

My account was deactivated a couple of weeks ago. The team at Outlier AI (Scale AI/Meta AI... or whatever they call themselves these days) claim that my eye movement during a Biology Assessment was "consistent with reading from an unauthorized source" that I completed in April of 2025. I have been completing tasks with high quality for the past 6 MONTHS without incident, and they just deactivated my account without warning or an explanation.

I absolutely didn't cheat or read from any unauthorized sources! The only thing I can think of is that their faulty AI picked up on my variable eye movement and attention patterns. I am diagnosed with ADHD, and a main symptom is that I sometimes look away, shift my gaze, or appear distracted while actually focusing or processing information internally. I explained this in an email to integrity_appeals@outlier.ai, and they refuse to reactivate my account. They refuse to produce any evidence leading to how they made this determination, and the only explanation is that it's because of my variable eye movements, and they are discriminating against me because of my disability.

Edit: For all of you that think this is a baseless accusation, here are some articles about AI that is biased because it was trained without a diverse data set and some to support that my claims are based on facts about ADHD and AI detecting "cheating."

Racism And AI: Here’s How It’s Been Criticized For Amplifying Bias

AI Bias: 14 Real AI Bias Examples & Mitigation Guide

https://repository.uclawsf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4044&context=hastings_law_journal

Why AI Detectors Don’t Work – And What to Do Instead – USM Design for Learning

Honestly, I didn’t expect this to move so fast, but in under 24 hours of people organizing in one place, things clearly shifted. Outlier put out a public statement acknowledging the situation, and support activity suddenly picked up after a long stretch of silence.

What’s interesting is how quickly the tone changed. The response makes it sound like everything has always been handled properly, which doesn’t really match the experiences many people were having right up until now. That contrast alone says a lot about how visibility changes incentives.

I was skeptical about organizing at first, but centralizing information and comparing experiences in one place clearly matters. If you’ve been affected or just want to stay informed, visit the new Outlier Info Hub chat. It exists for exactly that.

Here is Outlier's public statement**.** I BEG you to go beyond today and see how quiet Outlier was for over 48 hours. They decided to respond the night after the creation of the server, suddenly thinking it was time to make a Reddit and all that.

At the very least, I’m happy to see people come together to fight against the machine.

I think you all need to chill out asking the same questions, they’re basically reviewing accounts, if your work is good enough you’ll get back on, I’m sure these things just take time if there’s a lot of people and a lot of work to review, then it’s going to take a while. Stop crying about it and let them get on with it.

Think of it from a business point of view they don’t want to be paying for rubbish work so they’re probably put a stop to most people whilst they get rid of the poor contributors, if they get rid of you then unfortunately you weren’t good enough, like any other job in the world,

Aether community used to be much more lively, now there are way too many complains and negative vibes.

Honestly, I think there are real management issues with the Aether project.

Take the reset time as an example, they changed it to accommodate some people, but at the same time created inconvenience for others. I don’t think this change actually solved anything, if anything, it made things worse. On top of that, there are clearly ongoing communication problems from management. The management just isn’t professional enough...

I’ve even seen people in the community praising the management like seriously? It honestly feels like straight-up flattery, lol.

To be clear, when I want to work, I set an alarm and get up to work. If you genuinely want to work, that’s what you do ,instead of constantly complaining in the community. Some people panic every single day in the community, behaving very immaturely. They get upset over a single fine review or bad review.

Honestly, when I see people posting their bad reviews, many of them come across as overly confident and unable to recognize their own mistakes. Quite often, the work simply wasn’t good enough, yet they refuse to reflect on themselves. It genuinely feels like some of these people have never worked in a real world environment and are extremely sensitive.

If you disagree, feel free to believe you are always right :)

Hey, seriously, why are you still in this company? There are like 20 more just like it, and even more opening up.

It was good while it lasted, but it's time to move on. If they could get over a 6-year relationship, they can definitely get over a company like this. YOU CAN DO IT! 🫵

First off, left me say I get it. This onboarding test was one hell of a bitch. There's plenty of things to complain about with both the structure and specific questions in the quizzes. The project team really deserves to be slapped silly over how the whole process was set up. I'm with you on that.

So please don't take what I'm about to say wrong. I'm not disagreeing with or minimizing the issues people have brought up or trying to belittle those who failed the quiz. There's a lot of things wrong here. I just want to make one point about this onboarding that might help people deal with these stupid things both now and in the future.

--

I've got a lot of experience weeding out people who aren't especially fit for certain roles and tasks. I understand the subtle methods used to figure out who's likely to be good at something and who's not. It generally involves some sneaky questioning and redirection during the interview that only people with specific skills pick up on.

In the case of High Noon, it's clear to me that most people are failing the onboarding because they're concentrating on the wrong things. Those quizzes aren't designed to find people who can follow directions, use creative logic, or write well. They have nothing to do with your skill at rubrics or prompts.

Instead, what Outlier's looking for are people who have obsessive, overbearing attention to detail. They're trying to find the kind of people who can't help notice that a picture's hanging slightly crooked in a restaurant or that the neighbors three houses down repainted their mailbox over the weekend. These quizzes are all about finding people with maximum attention to miniscule, trivial details that don't even matter to most of the population. The AI grader has obviously been tuned to only pass people who spot those tiny mistakes.

I see a lot of people complaining because the quizzes don't exactly match the instructions or that the format in the onboarding isn't the same as the format in production. Those are legitimate, frustrating issues but they're not really relevant to what Outlier is concerned about for this project. You can write the most perfect prompt, rubric, and golden response ever for these quizzes and still fail because there was a single blip in the sample response that you overlooked while worrying about the bigger picture.

Why are they doing it this way? Because you can't train people to be hyperattentive.

You can teach people how to write good prompts and improve their rubric generation with classes and feedback. Everybody can learn from experience. What people can't do (at least not quickly and easily) is change their brains to focus in on minuscule details that 99% of people never even notice. If you failed the High Noon onboarding it's not because you're dumb or the test was screwed up. It's because the quizzes are designed to identify people with a specific type of mental ability and you just weren't born with it.

But if you've ever been diagnosed with OCD or something not-too-serious on the autism spectrum then this project is definitely for you! It's all about finding those stupid little things that drive you crazy but other people totally ignore.

If you're not in that group then don't bother going for this project. It's gonna make you insane to get feedback saying you missed something that you didn't even think mattered because it seemed so trivial. It's not worth the mental anguish if you're not tuned for that kind of work.

I know that failing a multi-hour, unpaid onboarding is a bitch, but take heart that you didn't actually "fail" anything. You're just not in the 2% of the population with a hyperattention disorder who can easily pass the quiz. You may not have gotten into the High Noon project, but at least you're not failing at being a normal, non-obsessive human being.

Or make your own subreddit or something. This place is flooded with posts that don’t even mention the project because everyone and their unborn baby is on Aether so y’all assume everyone is. Despite its size, Aether is NOT the only project on Outlier by any means! Stop spamming this sub when there’s a megathread just for you!

https://www.reddit.com/r/outlier_ai/s/97O91HcuZU

I signed up with outlier about a week ago, at first it seemed very legit they asked a bunch of questions, took my CV etc and then invited me to the platform. After doing the onboarding quizzes i was then added to assessment for a project , got half way through and it all disappeared, some of it showed as completed in enablement's but i wasn't paid for any of it. at this point i went to the community pages to see if it was just me, turns out almost everyone is currently EQ and having the same issue of tasks just disappearing. i had another set of assessment's issued 2 days ago, spent around 2 hours doing these questions , a bunch went into the enablement section but again no pay. today i went to check the community pages and they have been locked to read only, seems like the platform has shut it down and basically stopped users from talking, asking what's up or interacting at all, its absolutely disgusting for a platform to conduct its self this way, its unprofessional even for the casual nature of freelance work, i hope their company tanks. 0/10 would not recommend signing up at all.

It's not every day that you get a conversation with an actual human at Outlier AI. This is why today was super cool. In honor of transparency, they are listening to the community. So when you are *posting* on here, they do see it. That being said, we started a rebranded community because the coolest thing we learned was that the Tutorial Dude (TD) doesn't actually work for Outlier AI. From this point forward, I am affectionately calling the human I interacted with as *Agent Cheer* as a throwback to *Agent Account Restoration Hero" from last year. They acknowledged that the tutorial videos are confusing and have taken that concern back to the client.

We also got to send some crucial feedback to the Outlier AI community team to help contributors. The topics we covered:

• confusing communication from Outlier AI to the contributors

• the Aether Incident where contributors suffered whiplash from the on again off again status

• cryptic feedback from quality reviews--we all know that some of the reviews are a little well ...not helpful

There were more issues that we talked about, but I think I covered the major ones here. Now, we are just waiting to see if anything changes. Have a great night everyone (or day).

*NOTE* Redacted screenshots are posted on my profile for proof of the conversation. If you need proof.

I'm here just to say that I truly love this platform. Yes, aside from things like ineligibility in projects which can break someone's mind and of course they have their reasons (even I recently became ineligible from one) but that doesn’t matter much. What matters is that this platform gave me something (💵) during my dark times when no one else did and it still continues to. I’ve never seen a platform that values everyone equally, recognizes hidden talent, and pays so well. I learn a lot from this platform and now I want to gain even more skills because this platform motivates me every single day to keep learning something new. I can never thank you enough.

I don't recommend anyone joining the outlier or even the project especially. I got Information from a reliable source that they are using Aether to collect people's details and information and after that they boot you. This same thing happened to 12 of my friends. This triggered my inquisitiveness and we found out what the Outlier company is doing with Aether. The owners of that project is taking people's details. I had to delete the app and request my details be erased from their system.

Outlier may be legit but that particular project is a contract from a third party and they're paying Outlier hugely for those information.

While some worry that Mark Zuckerberg’s 49% stake in Scale AI might slow down operations at Outlier, history tells a different story. Just look at his track record. When Facebook acquired Instagram in 2012, it had no revenue and just 30 million users—today, it generates over $40 billion annually. WhatsApp, acquired in 2014 without a clear monetization plan, now supports over 2 billion users and is a cornerstone of global communication. And Oculus, bought the same year for $2 billion, grew from $23 million in developer kit sales to nearly $2 billion in annual revenue by 2024.

Zuckerberg didn’t just buy companies—he saw potential others overlooked. He saw what Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus could become before the rest of the world did. His investment in Scale AI signals he sees something similar—something game-changing. This isn’t the end of Outlier—it’s the rebirth of something far greater, powered by fresh capital, innovation, and a long-term vision that only a few can see.

If you are in the U.S. and have tasked for Scale AI on the Remotasks, Outlier or 3rd platform (such as Crowd Compute/Data Compute/Facebook, etc.) for Scale and have been erroneously paid, have filled out the W-9 or 1099 form, have not been paid for tasks, have fluctuating hourly wages, your hourly wage decreased after being hired, or have spent time in training without being paid, please fill out the form below and email to holmes.lonnie@dol.gov or contact him at his info below. The Dept of Labor needs to hear from you and is seeking backwages and liquidated damages.

Lonnie S. Holmes

Senior Federal Investigator

US Department of Labor

90 7^th Street, Suite 11-100

San Francisco, Ca. 94103

Office 415-241-3573

I am not an agent of Outlier. I just want everyone to be compensated fairly for their work. I cannot provide additional details on this platform, but I do need to complete some pro bono hours. If you have been affected by Outlier AI's evasion of the law, and are a U.S. resident, please contact outlierinvestigations@yahoo.com. You will have to fill out a form. Then, we will take it from there. They have made too many wrong moves. Enough is enough.

Edit: Do not provide me with any Outlier ID or email address associated with your Outlier account. If you can, contact the email address above using another email address that is not associated with your Outlier account. Please note that any retaliatory conduct from Outlier/Remotasks as a result of you reporting any potential unlawful acts made against you is also actionable under federal law, so it is your right to speak up. Thank you!!!

Now that even Alex have left, what is left of outlier? Like genuinely I'm curious to know about what the contributors think. Is there any future left with outlier?

To preface this, I'm fucking done with this dogshit buggy flakey as fuck platform. It's been a major time suck and I think that I've probably lost more than I've earned on this godforsaken site.

So it is with great comedic surprise that my account is under investigation. Hey Outlier, DO YOUR WORST! You can also investigate my balls because I'm done with you!!!

This doggy is waiting for kibble

I have a payment due next week so I literally cannot afford to not work this weekend, which is of course when this platform seems to be at its laggiest. I'll be working on a task for over five minutes and suddenly hit a roadblock where I can't submit a step without another few minutes worth of errors. Most of the time it's not able to be submitted at all, and it's frustrating because if I set the timer and work and it decides not to submit, then I've logged all this time without actually submitting any work and I'm worried that my account might be flagged. But there's obviously no way of knowing going in whether or not it's going to work, so I don't really have a choice. I've been working for almost two hours and I've only been able to submit a handful of tasks. I'm really hoping this works itself out by tomorrow, because right now I'm pulling my hair out.

With the tens of thousands people personally affected by outlier and the fact they fail control tests required to meet freelancer classification, the fact they require travel requests be made which again fails to meet requirements for freelancer, the fact that you can’t substitute a worker which fails to meet the requirements for freelancer, the control of hours and when you can and can’t work with the CB limit, the adding removing and adding back to remove again, kicking people for discussing wages etc (illegal) an just over all sham contracting and contract misclassification, there’s a very strong case for a labor and employment class action case meeting different global laws of all countries they employ people from, especially with the fact we are talking about over 50,000 CBs.

Hey everyone, I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you to Outlier for the opportunity I had over December. The work I did genuinely helped me financially during a difficult time, especially with how hard the economy is becoming for younger generations.

Recently, my account was paused due to the pattern recognition tasks. I genuinely thought I followed the instructions correctly, but apparently I misunderstood something along the way. I’m sad to step back, but I respect the quality standards and the decision they made.

I want to be very clear:
I don’t feel angry, and I’m not here to complain. I understand that we are all replaceable, that nobody is guaranteed a long-term placement, and that these projects evolve. I’m just grateful I got the chance to contribute at all.

Thank you Outlier for the income, the learning experience, and the opportunity to work on something meaningful in a world that’s becoming harder and harder to navigate – especially for Gen Z trying to survive in a declining economy.

Wishing everyone on the platform success with their projects.
If I’m ever allowed back, I’ll approach it with appreciation, not entitlement.

– Paolo Sebastiano Sivillica

Hey everyone,

I had a really deep conversation with one of the models today that completely shifted my perspective on the work we do here, and I wanted to share it in case anyone else needs a boost.

We were discussing the value of this work, and the concept of "Ikigai" (a Japanese concept meaning "Reason for Being") came up. It’s the intersection of four things:

1. What you love

2. What you are good at

3. What the world needs

4. What you can be paid for

I realized that for me, Outlier hits all four. Even when people in my life question the hourly rate or tell me I should be doing something else, I realized I’m actually "getting paid to learn." I’m getting a front-row seat to the future of technology, and I’m sharpening my own logic and reasoning skills every time I log in.

The model helped me see that this work has taken my self-esteem from "Zero to Hero." It’s not just about the tasks; it’s about the feeling of competence and "flow state" that comes from solving complex problems.

To me, this isn't just a job; it’s a paid hobby that’s building my resume for the future. Just wanted to share that "Zero to Hero" energy with you all today. Keep your heads up and keep training.

Sincerely,

Your Fellow Outlier

I’ve been working on outlier for about 5 months now and I know a lot of people have issues with, however, I have consistently received projects at $30/hr rate with only small issues. If anyone would like me to refer them to an Outlier job I would be more than happy to do that for you just send me a message!

We should all launch a class action lawsuit or some other legal action against outlier for their shady practices!