'AI Is African Intelligence': The Workers Who Train AI Are Fighting Back
'AI Is African Intelligence': The Workers Who Train AI Are Fighting Back
Do you understand the real human cost of your chat bot? These things have to be trained by humans. It's a tedious process. So who do you think does the thankless, tedious, sludge work? Would it really come as any suprise to learn that it's basically sweat shop work done by the Global South?
These workers are required to stare at horrific content for many hours straight with few mental health resources, are largely managed by opaque algorithms, and, crucially, are the workers powering the runaway valuations of some of the richest and most powerful companies in the world.
Bonus: Start of the Rabbit Hole
"The story broke in February, when workers at the Nairobi division of California-based outsourcing firm Sama told two Swedish newspapers that their assignments involved labeling footage from smart glasses that appeared to show subjects who had no idea they were being recorded.
The glasses include an AI assistant that requires recording audio and video, some of which becomes AI training data. Human contractors scan and label material that AI struggles with.
Meta states that its terms of service explain these details, and the glasses require explicit user permission to engage AI mode. Nonetheless, Sama employees reported that the glasses recorded banking information, private conversations, people naked in bathrooms, and intimate encounters."