Can the Ghost Worker Speak? De-colonializing Digital Labor
Abstract: The current training and development processes of AI systems are based on the exploitation of “ghost work” (Gray, Sury 2019). Typical tasks of ghost workers include labeling images and sentences, verifying data, and moderating content. Based on remote work, ghost work represents a case of work outsourcing and offshoring, and can be seen as part of the larger phenomenon of “algorithmic coloniality” or “data colonialism” (Mohamed et al. 2020). For example, web-based microwork platforms such as Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, Samasource, and CrowdFlower enabled new forms of labor offshoring from corporations mostly based in the U.S., U.K., India, and Australia to workers in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia (Rani, Furrer 2020; Anwar, Graham 2020; Royer 2021). In the first part of my talk, I outline the main ethical concerns related to digital labor (Fuchs, Fischer 2015) focusing especially on the practices leading to its outsourcing, offshoring, and exploitation, and considering the perspectives of scholars from the global south (Albrieu 2021). In the second part of my talk, I explore solutions targeting AI systems’ design process and regulation. On the one hand, I suggest that ethical questions concerning the fulfillment of tasks usually performed by ghost workers should be already addressed by product design and not be left to chance. On the other hand, I stress that ghost workers’ rights should be protected by regulations. In order for this to happen, digital labor performed by ghost workers should be acknowledged as work and regarded as part of the software development process by lawmakers, corporations, and consumers (Snower, Twomey 2022). Moreover, in a globalized economic context, international supply chain laws addressing new forms of digital labor are necessary to prohibit the sale of products developed through work offshoring and exploitation.
Author bio: Sergio Genovesi is a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Science and Thought of the University of Bonn and a team member of the KI.NRW flagship project “Zertifizierte KI” (Certified AI). His research focuses on the ethics and ontology of technology, an specifically of AI systems. He holds a Ph.D. in theoretical philosophy from the University of Bonn.
Recorded Presentation | 26 April 2023
#Colonialism #SocialJustice #DecolonialApproaches #GhostWorkers
