AI's pay-to-play era raises questions about how much you value your skill set

iStock; Getty Images; Tyler Le/BI 2026-03-11T14:11:46.204Z Share Copy link Email Facebook WhatsApp X LinkedIn Bluesky Threads lighning bolt icon An icon in the shape of a lightning bolt.

Impact Link Save Saved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? Log in. This post originally appeared in the Business Insider Today newsletter. You can sign up for Business Insider's daily newsletter here. Sometimes it pays to be a hater. Loading audio narration... Online trolls rejoice! An AI software company is looking for someone to spend the day bullying chatbots, writes BI's Ana Altchek. Memvid is shelling out $800 for someone to spend eight hours testing and critiquing the memory of popular chatbots.There's certainly an element of viral marketing going on with the unique job offer, but it's also not completely out of left field. The almighty dollar is proving to be a powerful motivator for people to use AI. KPMG is launching a rewards program that pays cash prizes to employees with the best ideas for using AI, BI's Polly Thompson exclusively reports.Rob Fisher, KPMG US's vice chair of advisory, declined to give Polly specifics on how much the consulting giant is shelling out, but said it would typically be "materially larger" than year-end bonuses. (The prize may be split between teams and will vary based on the impact of the idea, so hold off on buying that Hamptons house.) AI is even upending the comp equation in the heart of tech land. BI's Alistair Barr, author of the great Tech Memo newsletter, detailed how there's a new pay-package request among top candidates: compute."As a coder in the AI era, if you don't have access to massive compute, you might end up producing far less software than your colleagues, threatening your career prospects," Ali explains. The pay-to-play-with-AI trend raises an interesting question about putting a value on your skill set.Almost a year ago, news broke that Meta was recruiting people to record their facial expressions and small talk, offering $50 an hour. The robotics field has had plenty of human-led training projects as they try to get humanoids up to speed. But it's one thing to teach a robot how to fold laundry or show off your pearly whites to the camera. What about training AI on the things you already get paid to do?I raised this issue in the newsletter last year, asking readers how much they'd expect to get paid to train AI on something they're highly skilled at. Interestingly, no choice got a majority of the votes. An hourly rate of more than $100 was the top pick (28.1%), but some readers were willing to work for a lot less — 21.6% said they'd do it for $50 an hour. Meanwhile, 16.5% said they wouldn't train AI for any amount of money.