OpenAI Fires Contractors Caught Using AI to Grade ChatGPT
TL;DR
- OpenAI's written guidelines ban GPTZero, Grammarly, LLMs, and AI translation for all annotation tasks, with immediate project removal as the stated penalty.
- Mercor confirmed the ban to multiple outlets but framed enforcement as reactive: workers are removed after violations are discovered, not screened beforehand.
- Detection relies on human pattern recognition — em dashes, repetitive phrasing, unusually fast completion times — because OpenAI deems AI detection software itself unreliable.
OpenAI has fired multiple contractors hired to grade ChatGPT's answers after catching them using AI to do the work, 404 Media reported. Internal documents reviewed by the outlet reference "more than ten thousand contractors" across the company's rating pipelines and bar them from touching AI-detection tools, GPTZero, Grammarly, or a chatbot itself while working.
The instruction to reviewers is blunt: "Do not use AI detection tools, or AI yourself." A second line tells supervisors not to reveal how they spot cheats, since "it is easier for them to hide if they know what you look for." The tells are repetitive word patterns, excessive em dashes, and unusually fast completion times.
One fired worker's termination letter flagged issues with the "authenticity" of their submissions. The contractor's own account was direct: "I just needed a little boost and turned to AI to help me." Mercor, the staffing firm subcontracting many of these raters, told 404 Media, "When we confirm an expert has used AI to complete a task, we immediately remove them," while defending its bench: "Our experts are hired for their expertise and judgement, which is essential to the ongoing advancement of AI."
Cheating is not the only problem. One contractor described a job stripped of meaning: "I felt no joy in the work or that I was contributing to society in any way." Another described active sabotage, saying they "either pay zero attention to the results and choose randomly or purposely choose the worst output." OpenAI declined to comment.
What others are reporting
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Gizmodo Read →
Frames the firing policy against Sam Altman's public statements that AI will displace jobs, surfacing the contradiction between OpenAI's external messaging and internal labor practices.
"Do not use AI detection tools, or AI yourself...Reviewers may not use AI either, including Grammarly and AI translation."
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Tom's Guide Read →
Details the detection methodology: reviewers identify violations through behavioral tells rather than software, and are specifically told not to disclose their criteria to workers.
"Contractors hired to review and improve the responses generated by OpenAI's AI models have been fired or removed from projects after using AI to do their own work."
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International Business Times AU Read →
Leads with the internal documentation angle, publishing the explicit ban language and noting reviewers are taught to flag em dash overuse and repetitive phrasing as AI tells.
"Do not use GPTZero or any other AI detection tool. They are not reliable. Reviewers may not use AI either."
Shared on Bluesky by 8 AI experts (top 5 by trust)
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New: OpenAI has thousands of contractors improving its AI, including reading ChatGPT users' prompts We've found many of those contractors have been fired for themselves using AI to train the AI. People using AI "all the…
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Good old irony ain’t dead. (But I admit I had to read the header 5 times to get who’s doing what 🧐…) www.404media.co/people-train... (Thanks to @carissaveliz.bsky.social for sharing this)
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Originally reported by 404media.co
Read the original article →Original headline: OpenAI Fires Contractors for Using AI to Train Its AI, Bans GPTZero and Grammarly in Reviewer Workflow