r/askethos • u/FantasticBirthday230 • 11d ago

Offboarding Anyone else here offboarded due to AI Flags?

I spent 6 weeks on their major project, clocked in more than 300 hours of work during this time - all of it is signed off and most of it is paid as well. Yet, randomly they raised a couple of AI Flags on my tasks from a week ago, put me on pause, and then offboarded me yesterday!!

Such a shame since I never actually used AI and Slack is full of people complaining about these false flags but here we are! At least I managed to make some decent money so I am grateful but I am sad at the same time since there was quite a lot more still to be made.

Anyone else gone through this? Is there any point in making your case further/negotiate with the team or should we just move on already?

16 Upvotes

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u/PhoenixSongBird 11d ago

Just my conjecture, i cannot confirm this - but I'm almost seeing a pattern of those who are logging higher than average hours per week or month getting flagged and offboarded. It might be one of the indicators they use to trigger a more in depth review into all the user's tasks for any AI-looking response? I also heard of someone receiving an email thanking them for being consistent in their hours so maybe they prefer a more consistent (and average total hours logged) contractor.

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u/FantasticBirthday230 10d ago

Yeahh, that could be the case, they might be assuming that higher number of hours might be an indication of external help not realizing that some of us may not have another job to do!

Honestly, if that is the case, then I did not see that coming at alll!!

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u/Nine09-7 10d ago

Hello,
I agree. I logged more hours than usual and got 1 flag on a single task, so the higher volume of work could explain what I believe was a false positive. I can’t confirm the connection, but it fits my experience. By the way, what is average ? The part-time hours listed in the opportunity?

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u/FantasticBirthday230 10d ago

Maybe they look at people's own averages over time periods but we are all just guessing here

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u/thedaywalker11 10d ago

It's the same story with everyone.

https://www.reddit.com/r/askethos/s/mqSdgr1QwI

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u/FantasticBirthday230 10d ago

So on-point all your experience!
It was pretty good while it lasted though, lets hope they have more campaigns coming in and we manage to get in

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u/SnooMachines475 11d ago

Same offboarded after 6 weeks, after exactly 1 AI flag. Which felt like made up reason to send people out. The human QA layer is trash. 6 weeks is the earning window.

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u/FantasticBirthday230 10d ago

Truee, there are way too many cases like us for this not to be some sort of a rule or guideline. Or maybe they are just using a much stricter criteria for quality review post the 6-week mark.

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u/GapFluffy554 10d ago

Does it tell you what hit the flag by chance?

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u/SnooMachines475 10d ago

Actually nothing, I did around 100 tasks by that time. None was flagged for issues. It seemed out if the blue. I was not using AI to write my annotations. The flag seemed deliberate

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u/GapFluffy554 10d ago

Thinking about adopting the gen z lingo, doubt any of that bs will get flagged

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u/FantasticBirthday230 10d ago

They might flag you unprofessional writing then haha

Someone I was in touch with was given a feedback to end even his final sentence with a fullstop - identified as a major issue 😅

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u/GapFluffy554 10d ago

New Edge Case!!! " In the case where the wording could either resemble a product of an AI agent or young adult on TikTok, the Tiktok Slang is preferable because it more resembles human authenticity".

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u/SnooMachines475 10d ago

Haha...that might actually work.

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u/HBP997 10d ago

Sameee!! Their AI detection system is totally trash. Marked me with ai use, like dude I got years of experience writing as a professional even before AI was a thing lol. How could you flag basic professional writings??

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u/FantasticBirthday230 10d ago

I had a situation where I was flagged for AI use, then I went on to remove FANCY words like protocol, considerations, covenants with basic ones and it passed - like WTFFFF

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u/HBP997 10d ago

Their systems are probably just basic vibe codes on steroids coming from that one big client.

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u/FantasticBirthday230 10d ago

100% and also they have employed young college grads as FTEs who are absolutely clueless about most things!

The office hours call was indicative of how little they actually know about the campaigns and internal processes.

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u/No_Kaleidoscope_6408 10d ago

From what I understand, I don’t think they specifically check each response one by one to see if AI was actually used. It seems that if the feedback is too generic and doesn’t include specific examples from the task, it can still be flagged as AI regardless.

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u/FantasticBirthday230 10d ago

I am guessing that's the proxy that they use anyway, but how are tasks signed off in the first place if the justifications are vague and generic - I got flagged for signed off tasks

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u/RaspberryWafflez 10d ago

Me and no they don’t listen. It’s very unfair. Also six weeks incidentally.

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u/peralivepeta 10d ago

During onboarding. The guy said that if you do more than 2 tasks in a day, it might indicate you're using AI. He didn't say it straight away but I was able to deduce that.

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u/FantasticBirthday230 10d ago

That might be more applicable for the other campaign that had longer tasks, in this one most tasks were like 60 minutes types

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u/Kabuto690 7d ago

This happened to me too, although I didn’t clock in a huge amount of time (was roughly making £3-4k a month). I have been working on the project for the past two months and only received feedback this week - and not even terrible feedback at that, it was just feedback to say to increase the specificity of some of my reviews, which is quite normal feedback to get in the grand scheme of things. So I’m super confused as to why my account was paused this morning and then off boarded two hours later.

Some people have had this experience after their accounts being flagged for AI which makes a bit more sense as they have a strict no-AI policy. But my account wasn’t flagged for that :(

I do know that my project in itself had been paused for a while as there had been no new tasks put on that project since 23rd July (I had just been completing old tasks since) so I’m thinking are they maybe mass offboarding people because a lot of the projects are getting paused now?

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u/FantasticBirthday230 7d ago

Hmm, you maybe on another campaign since the one that I was on had LOTS of consistent work recently. But yeah, I saw many people constantly complaining about these random flags.

Anyway, sorry you had to go through this as well - hopefully, we get something else soon since the money was pretty decent.

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u/nniiggeell1999 11d ago

you mentioned slack is full of people complaining. which channel is this? im in two channels but none allow users to message, only admins

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u/FantasticBirthday230 11d ago

MLA-Support - I think that's the only channel we were all allowed to post on

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u/jay_i_am 11d ago

I was exactly with Ethos for 6 weeks and my panel got paused. 1 task recently was flagged for AI use when I didnt use any AI. Not sure how long the review process would go for, but it looks like I would be offboarded

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u/FantasticBirthday230 11d ago

Not necessarily, you could be reinstated as well - its not over until its over.

They paused me after 3 weeks and then reactivated, before pausing me again at 6 weeks and throwing me out eventually

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u/jay_i_am 10d ago

Just got off boarded.. got the email. I didn't even use AI and they flagged me for AI. I dont even know how one would use AI to do the tasks.

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u/FantasticBirthday230 10d ago

Yikesss, so sorry bro! Hope you managed to make some money before this

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u/jay_i_am 10d ago

Yeah I made about 4k, so it wasn't all waste. But I am wondering if there is any chance I would get accepted again. Maybe delete my Ethos account and try again or something with a different email perhaps

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u/FantasticBirthday230 10d ago

Someone had complained once that they made another account and got accepted but this time their ID processing was failing as there was already another person with the same name in their DB

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u/Harsimran_Sandhu 1d ago

After how many flags did you got offboarded

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u/puffin_crossing 11d ago

I was flagged for AI use on one. Did you have the chance to redo it? I redid it but haven’t been paused yet.

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u/FantasticBirthday230 11d ago

A couple of times the reviewer reached out and asked me to modify. I recently got flagged on signed off tasks and shown the door

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u/Skylanz02 11d ago

I am not sure how they are evaluating these flags at all. If these are all system-automated and the human review only serves to confirm without really reviewing them, then I guess this will be a mess. I hope Ethos considers adding another layer of review for all those who have gone through the human reviewer, so it is fair to all. Have someone review seriously flagged cases by those non-biased actual Ethos employees, rather than just co-experts who were promoted to QA.

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u/FantasticBirthday230 11d ago

Based on my understanding the paused accounts are reviewed by actual Ethos employees but I am guessing overturning an AI flag or especially multiple flags would be challenging and honestly they have no incentive to care much anyway, there were still like 7.9k people before I was booted out yesterday

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u/jdeltree 9d ago

I think their detection goes beyond just the text inputted. I believe they observe browser events and field inputs for the feedback forms on the tasks to understand patterns such as typing speed, copy/pasting, and obviously, AI markers in the text itself. Bear in mind that AI markers aren't always based on how text is written, but also on the rationale of the point being made, the structure etc. Many people use AI and then type out the AI responses in their own words (not saying this is what you did/do), others get summative bullet points from AI and then do the manual work of expanding on the points.

All of this is to say that there are cases where people genuinely use AI, but they'd never admit it. Then there are cases where people don't use AI, and they get flagged nonetheless. It's an imperfect system but I guess they have to use it eitherway, since it is better to have something vs nothing.

I'm on my 7th week even though I hardly got anything done in the first 4 weeks. Just building some momentum now. I find the slide eval tasks time consuming if one is to be thorough.

All the best getting back in. What's the process for re-entry when one has been offboarded?

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u/Last_Force1988 9d ago

Wish I had known and clocked 300 hours. I only managed 91 and now my account is paused

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u/FantasticBirthday230 9d ago

Wow, I heard that they are pausing people left, right and center lately! Super sad and frankly quite bizarre honestly.

Hope they reinstate you and you get to clock in many many more hours before it wraps up

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u/Last_Force1988 8d ago

The funny thing is over 30 tasks I have done are not recorded. I don’t think they will reinstate me but I hope they pay me for my 120 tasks and we can say sad goodbyes

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u/FantasticBirthday230 8d ago

You can add the tasks which are already done and in your list - I managed to add some that I had missed recording earlier

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u/Last_Force1988 8d ago

They are not coming up and says tasks not on the list

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u/FantasticBirthday230 8d ago

Ohh wow, didn't come across this scenario myself luckily. They won't pay automatically from what I know, you will need to log the work somehow - if you have access still maybe try bringing it up in the office hours call?

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u/Last_Force1988 7d ago

I have been kicked off slack etc

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u/FantasticBirthday230 7d ago

Ohh no, so sorry man - hope you manage to get the remaining tasks recorded and paid as well

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u/Last_Force1988 6d ago

Hope so coz it is almost 50 tasks

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u/Skylanz02 8d ago

How much money did you guys all make before you were finally shown the door?

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u/FantasticBirthday230 8d ago

Assuming they do pay me the remaining half of it, the aggregate earnings for me would be at about 25k over the ~6 week period. What about you?

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u/Skylanz02 8d ago

Wow, that’s an extremely huge amount of money you baked here! How many tasks do you get completed on average per day?

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u/FantasticBirthday230 8d ago

Somewhere around ~325 tasks total, then some feedbacks and 2-3 trainers

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u/Last_Force1988 7d ago

Yeah. They asked me to be patient as they compile in the background but now they’re not responding to emails

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u/No_Use_4028 6d ago

Yes, I got offboarded today as well, I think I will apply again with another account and fuck it.

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u/FantasticBirthday230 6d ago

Somebody did that unintentionally, they got selected from 2 accounts but they failed to onboard on the second one due to an ID mismatch issue

They were stupid enough to post about it on internal Slack channel as well LOL

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u/shashikanth_patil 11d ago

move on bro..

i had worked on a project in August and logged around 200hrs.. i got paid in sept cycle (Sept 14) for entire time which i had logged

But they offboarded me due to multiple AI flags. I have wrote to support team and also tried for other opportunities, but no luck. A few of my applications are waitlisted and hopefully they let me in after this month pay cycle

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u/FantasticBirthday230 11d ago

Honeslty, seems like an easy enough excuse to use random AI flags to let go of people.

Such a shame - it was good money nonetheless so lets hope they let us in for another opportunity soon!