Getting Paid to ID?

General
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I’m sure many folks have occasionally daydreamed about getting paid to use iNat. Well, if so, (maybe) your dream has come true? I came across this job posting this morning:
https://www.researchgate.net/job/1013726_Ecologists_Naturalists_and_Taxonomic_Experts-Remote_Job
which sounds very much like doing iNat IDing.

To be clear, I am not affiliated with this job, am not promoting it, and have no real knowledge of the company or what they do. I just thought it was interesting that iNat type IDing might be a marketable skill.

For instance, I could imagine someone using their iNat profile as a primary qualification for this.

Some key excerpts from the job that made it sound like iNat IDing:

"Can you identify birds, bats or frogs from acoustic data?

Or can you identify plants, mammals and insects found from high-resolution images?

Do you enjoy sharing your expertise and improving the way the world measures biodiversity?"

Yep, sounds like an iNat IDer. In fact, their profiles of employees include at least one self-identified iNat IDer.

This is a paid role that you can do online, from anywhere, at any time. The role involves adding species labels to the audio or image files to name the species present. Your expertise will help us protect nature by providing robust evidence.

Together, we will build the most detailed set of annotated, species-level biodiversity data ever compiled.

Overall process sounds very much like iNat
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The company also claims to have

the richest ever database of accurate biodiversity data

Which seems like it might be typical Silicon Valley-ish hyperbole.

I have no idea how the actual experience of doing what they primarily call “annotating” compares to iNat, but it seems like it might be a similar “workflow.”

The biggest difference to me seems to be that the iNat process is open-source, transparent, and volunteer-based. Anyone can contribute to and use iNat data which makes it an outstanding resource.

The work here seems to accept data from unspecified sources, be closed (ie, the finished data arenot available to anyone else), all data is processed by machine-learning routines before annotators interact with it, and tied to explicitly monetized outcomes, such as:

regulatory disclosures and to guide actions, but we can also link evidence to a variety of financial mechanisms – such as sustainability-linked bonds and biodiversity credits – enabling money to flow to those projects and activities that create the most positive change.

which, of course, since they are a company looking to make a profit.

Do other forum users have any thoughts? Has anyone else worked in a similar situation? How do folks feel about the implications of work like this regardless of whether they have/haven’t done it?

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I have no experience with this kind of work, but I think it’s a great idea. If conservation can become a profitable industry, it gives more incentive for people and companies to protect the environment.

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South Africa has battled with an ‘if it pays it stays’ attitude to nature and conservation. Bit wary of that job description. But I think taxon specialists should be able to claim engaging with citizen scientists (adding IDs on iNat for example) as part of their paid work hours.

PS having read the 2 profiles - IDing plants by sight, not genomics. Yes sounds good.

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I’m not sure, but I think much of the work will be to identify audio files (from audiomoth devices) left in remote locations recording all day, and to try to find out from the recordings what species of amphibians, birds, bats (and orthopterans and cicadas) are there.

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They say

Together, we will build the most detailed set of annotated, species-level biodiversity data ever compiled.

So at least they aren’t making claims about the present, yet…

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Side note, but I have a couple of landowners who pay me to vet their iNaturalist observations (basically see what plants and animals are showing up in their restoration areas, to the best of my ability to do so). I enjoy the supplementary income and it pays for more nature outings.

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I did some marine and estuarine invert identifying (samples, not photos) for a couple student jobs in college and for a very short time after graduating. I wish I could get paid for my work on iNat. I still find it fulfilling. Especially when I get feedback/thanks.

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hmmm… based on a couple of quick web searches, it looks like Pivotal has secured 2 rounds of funding – $920K in late 2021 and then another ~$5.8MM in early 2023.

it looks like they’re basically trying to create data about biodiversity in places that folks could potentially potentially serve as the basis for a biodiversity credit market. the data would basically measure biodiversity at different points in time. if biodiversity goes up in a particular place, you can earn money from selling credits; and if biodiversity goes down in another place, you could buy those credits as an offset.

it would be similar to the carbon credit market, which has a mixed track record of success and scientific legitimacy.

from the second article noted above:

Pivotal claims to cut the cost of documenting site-level change by as much as 98 per cent and allow as few as 1500 workers to annually assess 100 million hectares or 5 per cent of the world’s degraded land.

so it sounds to me like they want to have up to 1500 part-time contractors basically spot-checking the work of AI evaluations of biodiversity based on data gathered from aerial drones and on-the-ground sensors.

they had $6.5MM in venture capital funding over 4 years. let’s guess that they have the same amount of funding from other sources. let’s also guess that they’re spending $2MM per year on core team of management and tech folks, plus office, tech infrastructure, data acquisition stuff. it’s unclear if they they have any revenue at this point.

so then there’s not a whole lot left to hire, manage, and pay 1500 contractors (until more funding or revenue starts coming in) – maybe $3000 per contractor, with each contractor getting $1500 on average (and $1500 going to overhead costs). i would assume pay would vary by skill and location, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t seem like being one of their identifiers would be a particularly high-paying job. i would guess it would be better suited for supplemental income for students and retirees.

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This is a good analysis, thanks.

I’m giving them credibility points for not flogging AI. They’re using the more appropriate term “machine learning”, and I didn’t see any hyperbolic claims that “AI WILL SAVE THE WORLD, PLEASE SUBMIT TO YOUR NEW OVERLORD”. I’m so tired of hearing that.

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Yeah this looks perfect for me, since I’m not looking for a full-time job, I’m looking for something I can do on my own time between classes to earn a little money.

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Makes perfect sense. Might be worth thinking about the disputes that will inevitably arise when someone contests a paid id’er.

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I’m a bit skeptical. It sounds too good to be true. I’ve filled out their survey out of curiosity, so I’ll wait to see what happens.

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The carbon credit market created a market demand for carbon emissions to trade. So what do you think a biodiversity credits market is going to do? “We’ll buy up biodiversity credits somewhere else so that we can destroy biodiversity here.”

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to me, the sketchiest part of the carbon credit market is more on the supply side. it’s hard to determine any credit’s true underlying incremental carbon reduction and permanence of that reduction. so if you offset your carbon with a credit based on questionable claims, and then you feel free to release more carbon than you would have otherwise, then that’s bad.

biodiversity credits would likely be similarly hard to judge. moreover, whereas carbon is carbon is carbon, diversity in one place is not the same as diversity in another place, and having a lot of introduced organisms isn’t necessarily the same as having a lot of native organisms, and having a well-established ecosystem is not the same as one that was just created and is still in flux. without having read or thought about the topic at all, it’s not obvious to me how you would structure a market like that where you might end up offsetting apples with oranges.

my feeling is that we do a lot of things that feel like one step forward two steps back or one step forward one step back (at the cost of time, energy, and other opportunities), but maybe this kind of thing is worth at least exploring? who knows?

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I did the same. Just to see what happens.

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Me also.

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I experimentally filled in the form. I wasn’t wholly encouraged by the question “Can you identify plants from a photo like this” (insert photo that on inaturalist would make you think “could you not get a bit closer, I’m not psychic”). But hey we’ll see :)

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Much kinder that what runs thru my mind for those photos of distant green stuff.

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I worry about people naively monetizing increased biodiversity, given that old growth forests typically have lower biodiversity than weedy fields. (Let’s log it!!!)

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That reminds me: During the oral exam for my Ph.D. (seems recent, but it’s longer ago than your birth in many cases), I was asked how to increase diversity in good quality habitat in a nature reserve. I responded, “Build a road through it!” The prof who asked hadn’t expected that! As I was explaining (including saying that biodiversity in itself isn’t necessary a good measure of habitat quality), I could see my major professor’s small smile. That question went well.

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