We're talking pre-contracts where a client is just inundated with kind of generic, bland, no-thought-involved proposals,” Fisher, who has hired 80 freelancers on Upwork, tells Forbes.Īs a response, clients on Upwork have started including disclaimers from the get-go. “The real problem on Upwork is the sheer volume of proposals. When I’m hiring somebody, I’m looking for more detail, more depth and more thinking than ChatGPT.”Įvan Fisher, who is both a client and a freelancer on Upwork, ran into the same issue: low quality content written by ChatGPT. “If I just wanted the basic ChatGPT-level answer, I would have just done that myself. O’Dowd, who says that over the past decade he’s hired “close to 100 people who do work that ChatGPT could replace,” says he won’t hire freelancers who pass off ChatGPT’s work as their own because he wouldn’t be able to trust them, and it would indicate a lack of effort. Upwork doesn’t have an AI detection tool embedded into the platform and so he used enterprise-focused AI startup Writer’s detection software to evaluate proposals. Of the 300 proposals, he suspects more than 200 were done by ChatGPT, he says. In early April, business consultant Sean O’Dowd uploaded two job postings on Upwork and within 24 hours he received close to 300 applications from freelancers explaining why they should be hired. “We want our clients and our talent to be doing all of their diligence to make sure that their work is secure and that things are trusted,” says Margaret Lilani, vice president of talent solutions at Upwork.

The company declined to comment on how ChatGPT has affected the rate of transactional disputes or its bottom line during a Forbes interview. “Any use of generative artificial intelligence by users of our work marketplace may lead to additional claims of intellectual property infringement,” Upwork’s annual report reads.

Upwork, which booked roughly $620 million in revenue in 2022, disclosed in its SEC filings that increased use of AI would be a threat to its business.

People per hour illustration jobs