AI companies want to pick your brain for cash

Courtney Fahnhorst was looking for a way to supplement her income when she stumbled on a Linked In ad seeking medical experts to help train AI models. The mother of four was already working a full-time job as a wound care and hyperbaric medicine specialist but wanted to earn some extra income to put toward a private practice she plans to open in St. Johns County, Florida, later this year. “I really needed a job that was going to be flexible but also allowed me to build some income and capital to invest in my future,” she says. “This fit the bill perfectly.” Over the last two years, the former ER doctor and wound care specialist has dedicated as much time as she can spare to sharing her 15 years of medical experience with the artificial intelligence software. “It’s posing a clinical situation, and I’m evaluating how well the model responds to it—where it gets it wrong, what misconceptions it may attract,” she says. Though Fahnhorst was initially interested in the opportunity for the ability to set her own hours, she says she’s gotten a lot more out of the temporary contract position than just a paycheck. “The salary is competitive with what I would make in a clinic-based or hospital-based environment, but it gives me flexibility. It really has also brought back that passion for medicine that I think a lot of us are missing,” she says. “Getting back to the main reason behind what we do and taking away the bureaucratic things that tie our hands in medicine as physicians and providers—that really has been a very fun aspect that I was not expecting.” Fahnhorst adds that training AI models for companies like her current employer, Mercor, also democratizes access to medical information. “My patients go to Dr. Google, and have been for as long as I’ve been in medicine,” she says. “I do think there’s a great service in teaching these models correct information.” Experts Wanted Fahnhorst is just one of the 30,000 “experts” regularly imparting their professional kno