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We’re retired lawyers who started a podcast to figure out where to live. 5 years in, we’ve got a new idea.

A selfie of a couple with headsets and a mic.
Gilen Chan and Gene Preudhomme started a podcast to interview retirees about where they chose to settle.

  • Gilen Chan and Gene Preudhomme, both 63, started a podcast interviewing retirees around the world.
  • The couple didn’t know where to retire, so they asked others to share their stories.
  • Over five years later, their podcast has grown steadily and now features over 200 episodes.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Gilen Chan and Gene Preudhomme, both 63 and retired lawyers, who are the creators and hosts of the “Retire There with Gil & Gene” podcast. It has been edited for length and clarity.

It’s been over five years since we started our podcast.

In early 2020, we were both thinking about retirement and knew we wanted to leave Brooklyn, where we’d raised our son and lived for many years.

The idea of being surrounded by nature appealed to us, so we began considering a move to a different state. We decided to take a trip to explore our options and headed to Winter Park in Florida. It was nice, but we knew right away that it wasn’t for us.

We returned to New York, wondering where our next scouting trip would take us. However, the pandemic struck a few weeks later. All travel had stopped, and we found ourselves stuck, just like everyone else.

We came up with the idea of starting a podcast about where to retire. We wanted a show where we could interview people across the country and hear their stories.

Starting our own podcast

We reached out to family, friends, and their networks, and we were lucky to find people willing to share their experiences. We knew that new podcasts often launch with several episodes, so we recorded four right away.

Finding guests, however, has remained one of the most challenging aspects of producing the show. Just as our pool of interviewees from our initial circle began to run dry, a friend introduced us to someone who had retired in Paris. We interviewed him, and he became our first international guest.

When we started the podcast, we were a little intimidated. At the time, we assumed most podcasters were younger than we were. But since we’re both fairly tech-savvy, we figured if they could do it, so could we.

When we were living in Brooklyn, we recorded from our basement, which we’d soundproofed. Each conversation lasts about an hour to an hour and a half, and can take between four to five hours to edit.

Our podcast has over 200 episodes so far, and we’ve learned that the best guests are also willing to admit when things have not gone as planned. Some have shared that while they love a place for vacation, living there long-term simply does not feel right for them.

We’ve had some memorable guests through the years, including an American retiree who wanted to move to Costa Rica while his wife wasn’t so sure.

To change her mind, he hired a local expert to take her on a solo trip around Costa Rica for two months. When she returned, she told her husband she couldn’t wait to move there. That was a good one.

We recently received a sponsorship. It’s not a large amount, but it covers the cost of the services we use, like our recording software subscription, editing software, and our website.

Broadening our perspectives

Interacting with so many people about their retirement experiences has shaped the way we think about our own, especially after we began speaking with those who chose to live internationally.

It broadened our perspective and inspired us to think about spending part of our retirement overseas.

We’re now based in Pennsylvania. Our plan is to find a home here — which we’re still searching for — and spend about three months each year living abroad, choosing one city at a time and exploring from there.

Before the podcast, we would’ve never considered living abroad ourselves. We were both poor growing up, and the thought never crossed our minds. But then we met ordinary folks who seemed just like us who’d made it happen.

We realized that a flight from New York to California takes about six hours, and a flight to Europe can take about the same amount of time. Psychologically, it suddenly didn’t feel so far away.

In the end, we felt our lives could be so much richer if we could give it a try. Our son, who we’re very close to, lives in Rhode Island, so we aren’t ready to make the leap to live permanently abroad just yet. That’s why we’re going to start small.

In the countries we’ve visited, including France, Mexico, and Puerto Rico, we’ve enjoyed every one

What retirement has really taught us is that we’re now at a stage where we feel safe in knowing who we are. Traveling has only expanded our minds.

Do you have a story to share about relocating to a new city? Contact this reporter at agoh@businessinsider.com.

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Tajikistan: Three Chinese Workers Killed in Drone Attack from Afghanistan

Three Chinese workers in Tajikistan were killed in a drone attack that was carried out from across the border in Afghanistan, Tajikistan’s government said on Thursday.

The attack targeted a camp housing company employees in Tajikistan’s southwestern Khatlon region on Wednesday night, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“This attack was carried out using an unmanned aerial vehicle” carrying explosives, the ministry said.

“Despite the constant efforts by Tajikistan to maintain security and create an atmosphere of peace and stability in the border areas between Tajikistan and Afghanistan, the disruptive actions by criminal groups located in the territory of Afghanistan still continue,” it said. The ministry condemned “these acts of terrorist groups” and urged Afghan authorities to stabilize and secure their side of the border.

Chinese workers are involved in mining and construction projects in Tajikistan. Trouble along the border with Afghanistan has flared from time to time. Tajikistan said that it used a drone to kill two suspected drug smugglers from Afghanistan in the area a week ago. In August, Tajik guards and fighters from Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban movement exchanged fire.

The drone attack that killed the Chinese workers came ahead of a meeting on Thursday of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a regional bloc. Leaders from the member countries of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan gathered for the summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Tajikistan has periodically asked the group for more help in securing its long frontier with Afghanistan.

 

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Flash floods and landslides on Indonesia’s Sumatra island have killed 69 people, with 59 missing as emergency workers search in rivers and the rubble of villages for bodies and possible survivors.

Monsoon rains over the past week caused rivers to burst their banks in North Sumatra province on Tuesday. The deluge tore through mountainside villages, swept away people and submerged more than 2,000 houses and buildings, the National Disaster Management Agency said. Nearly 5,000 residents fled to government shelters.

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5 people explain how they broke into AI training and how much they make in their side hustle

A design featuring five individuals who landed AI jobs
  • AI training jobs offer flexible — and sometimes lucrative — side hustles.
  • Major companies like Meta and OpenAI use data labelers to improve their chatbots’ performance.
  • Five people share why they like freelancing as AI trainers and how much money they’ve made.

AI training is a booming industry that is making the human contributors behind the screen more important than ever.

As data from publicly available sources runs out, companies like Meta, Google, and OpenAI are hiring thousands of data labelers around the world to teach their chatbots what they know best.

Data labeling startups like Mercor and Handshake advertise that contributors can earn up to $100 an hour for their STEM, legal, or healthcare expertise. Other companies are banking on armies of generalists to rate AI responses, annotate social media videos, or improve a chatbot’s understanding of native languages. The flexible work appeals to parents, full-time professionals, and students alike — but it can be tedious, often convoluted, and slow to onboard.

Five contractors shared how they broke into the sometimes lucrative world of AI training, including how much money they’ve made.

These as-told-to-essays are based on conversations with the contractors, and they have been edited for length and clarity. Business Insider has verified their work.

Jessica Hamilton, Illinois
A woman with a laptop sitting on grass infront of a college campus
Hamilton first started AI training for extra “beer money” in college.

I’ve always been an entrepreneur and have been running my e-commerce business since I was in college, which I graduated in 2018. I came across Prolific in 2023 after seeing it mentioned on a Reddit group called Beer Money.

There were enough people on Reddit who were giving Prolific credit that I decided to go for it. I signed up at the start of 2023, but it was not until 14 months later that I was taken off the waitlist and started getting projects.

I’ve been active on the platform since May 2024 and have worked on a wide range of projects. Prolific started off as an academic research tool, and most of the surveys were in politics, psychology, or health-related topics. AI training work, which is newer to the platform, involves evaluating or comparing AI responses and doing fact checks.

I’ve tried other platforms like DataAnnotation, Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, Appen, and Telus, which did not have as long a waitlist. But once I started to get work on Prolific, and especially AI tasks, it has become my primary platform. I’ve also found it to pay a lot better than a lot of the other companies.

I keep my laptop open between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m., five days a week, and check Prolific for projects every now and then. Through this work, I made $1,200 in September, $1,100 in August, and about $1,000 in July.

The extra money supplements my income from my e-commerce store and my family’s go-karting business. It has helped me pay off student loans faster and will help pay for a new laptop. Last August, I went to the Olympics in Paris and to three other countries. I was able to pay for it because of my income from these platforms.

Elizabeth Boyd, Florida
AI trainer Elizabeth Boyd.
AI trainer Elizabeth Boyd.

In July 2023, I received a LinkedIn message from a Scale AI recruiter inviting me to apply as a law domain expert on Remotasks, a Scale AI-owned platform that preceded Outlier.

I was onboarding by early August, but didn’t do much work on the platform until March or April of 2024. They were offering daily bonuses for working a set number of hours. Good pay rates with regular bonuses, weekly payments, and not needing to look for clients on a regular basis made the AI work more attractive than the content creation work I’d been doing. I put my travel agency franchise on the back burner.

Since then, AI training has been my main source of income. I typically work around 30 to 35 hours a week, and I supplement that with some online writing.

Though I started as a law domain expert, I rarely ever worked on projects with a legal focus. Instead, I work on a wide variety of general, non-STEM topics that require specialized multimedia prompt engineering and AI response evaluation skills, as well as quality assurance work.

I worked on the Mindrift platform very briefly last year. However, nearly all my AI work was with Remotasks, then Outlier, until this summer. Now, the bulk of my AI training work is with the Mercor AI platform.

Outlier paid me $45 per hour, then $40 per hour. Now my rate with them ranges from $35 to $50, but they have a setup that drops the rate to $21.16 after a set time that is never sufficient for completing the task, so the effective rate is always lower than the starting or stated rate. It’s one more reason I generally avoid working there now.

Mercor pay rates vary greatly, but the projects I’m currently working on pay $45 and $45.50 per hour.

Some highs of freelancing on these platforms include the opportunity to work in a cutting-edge industry and being able to attain valuable skills. It’s also attractive pay for my experience and skills. Another plus is teamwork with some very smart, funny, and talented co-workers.

There are lows as well. There is no job security, and some projects are short-term, which means I have to continuously apply to new ones. However, project extensions are frequent, and I am often referred to new projects by my project leads for doing good work.

The work can be monotonous, and some of the projects can be run poorly, resulting in chaos and frustration.

A Scale AI spokesperson told Business Insider that Outlier gives contractors pay rates and estimated task times at the start of a project. “When contributors flag that certain tasks regularly take longer than expected, we review those tasks and adjust where appropriate.”

Ryan Adams, Virginia
Ryan Adams headshot
Ryan Adams

I’ve been tasking on Outlier for about a year and a half now, and I do it alongside my full-time job at a health and environmental nonprofit in Virginia.

I came across Outlier through a simple Google search because I was trying to learn more about AI. I applied to the platform and started receiving projects about three weeks later, after completing some onboarding and training.

I’ve worked on about 30 projects since, including training video chat models and voice recording projects. I spend about 20 to 25 hours on Outlier each week, and up to 30 hours when there are incentives like bonus pay.

I’ve been approached by another platform, but chose to work only on Outlier because it’s been a good fit for me, and I can’t take on more platforms with my full time job.

Per hour, I can make close to what I make in my full time job. I’ve earned about $31,000 so far, which is about one-third of what I made in my job over the last year and a half.

It’s allowed me to invest more and build emergency savings. My credit score is the highest it’s ever been, and I’ll be able to pay off my car loan by the end of the year. Eighteen months ago, I would not have believed that I could have an AI-related side hustle without working in tech.

Fred Nau, Florida
Fred Nau
Fred Nau is a contributor on Scale-AI-owned Outlier.

I’m a school chemistry and physics teacher. I heard about Outlier after my master’s when someone from the platform reached out to me on LinkedIn. They said that my experience in chemistry was something they were specifically looking for.

I applied at the start of 2024, and I started receiving projects within a couple of weeks. I majored in chemistry in college, and a lot of the projects I’ve taken on centered on chemistry or physics and rating different model responses in terms of accuracy. The platform has a lot of specialists, including people with PhDs from various academic backgrounds.

I try to work on the platform for one to two hours after work and five to 10 hours over the weekend, which gives me about 15 to 20 hours a week. Last year, I was working a lot less than I am now, but I made about $15,000.

I’ve used the extra income to pay for a down payment, and I’ve also used it to go on vacation with my girlfriend.

Even as a teacher in the district I work for, they’re making a huge push toward using AI and AI tools. For me, it’s a good opportunity to not only ensure that AI performs better by working on projects that improve data quality, but also to gain a better understanding of how AI works.

I’ve recommended it to other teachers because students are using AI. If you’re a teacher, it’s great to have exposure to these tools and the data that goes into this technology.

Peter Intile, Wisconsin
Peter Intile
Peter Intile

I have an extensive educational background in microbiology and immunology, and I earned a Ph.D. in the field. At my day job, I work for a management company, but still get to use my scientific knowledge for our projects.

I’ve always been involved in research work and was familiar with the kind of academic research platforms like Prolific or Amazon’s Mechanical Turk help with. Toward the tail end of the pandemic, when I had some extra time, I revisited Mechanical Turk, which I had used before.

I came across messaging boards and social media platforms that all said that Prolific is the place you should be going to for such work now. They noted several reasons, including better pay and a wider range of projects.

I signed up, was accepted in about two weeks, and have been working on it for about two and a half years. Since I first joined, the work has transitioned from academic studies and surveys into more AI-focused tasks. Much of it is about making the AI more human, such as behaving in ways that a human would anticipate or provide information.

I don’t use my scientific background very often in my AI task work — it’s mostly using my writing or critical thinking skills. I occasionally will get one or two that ask very specific biology-related questions, and those are fun because they bring me back.

It’s better than sitting on social media and scrolling aimlessly. It is a valuable use of my time, and it feels like meaningful work because I know researchers need good data in order to make conclusions about their research. I’m happy to participate in that.

I usually spend about two to three hours a day on the platform, primarily after work hours. I make somewhere between $20 to $100 a day, with the pay being around $20 an hour. I find myself getting enough tasks on Prolific that I haven’t spread myself out on other data labeling platforms.

We’re approaching Christmas, and this side hustle is paying for gifts. The other thing is vacations and being able to do things with my family a little bit more freely.

Have a tip? Contact Shubhangi Goel via email at sgoel@businessinsider.com or Signal at shuby.85. Use a personal email address and a nonwork device; here’s our guide to sharing information securely.

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