The essential labor of data work, like moderation and annotation, is systematically hidden from those who benefit from its fruits. A new project spotlights the lived experiences of data workers worldwide, showing firsthand the costs and opportunities of tech work abroad.
Outsourcing to Poorer Countries
Many tedious, thankless, or psychologically damaging tasks have been outsourced to poorer countries, where workers are happy to take on jobs for a fraction of an American or European wage. This labor market joins other “dull, dirty, or dangerous” jobs like electronics, “recycling,” and shipbreaking.
The Data Workers’ Inquiry Project
The Data Workers’ Inquiry, a collaboration between AI ethics research group DAIR and TU Berlin, nominally models Marx’s work from the late 19th century, which identified labor conditions in reports that were “collectively produced and politically actionable.” The project leaders launched all the reports today at an online event where they discussed them.
Human Expertise in AI Applications
The ever-expanding scope of AI applications relies on human expertise. Companies still buy that expertise for the lowest dollar value they can offer without incurring a public relations problem. When you report a post, it doesn’t say, “Great, we’ll send this to a guy in Syria who will be paid 3 cents to take care of it.
Anecdotal Reports
Perusing the reports, I see that they are mainly anecdotal and deliberate. These reports are more on the level of systematic anthropological observation than quantitative analyses. Quantifying experiences like these often fail to capture the actual costs — the statistics you end up with are the type that companies love to trumpet (and therefore to solicit in studies): higher wages than other companies in the area, job creation, savings passed on to clients. Seldom are things like moderation workers losing sleep to nightmares or rampant chemical dependency mentioned, let alone measured and presented.
Case Study: Kenyan Data Workers
Take Fasica Berhane Gebrekidan’s report on Kenyan data workers struggling with mental health and drug issues. She and her colleagues worked for Sama, which bills itself as a more ethical data work pipeline. It is unrelenting misery and a lack of support from the local office.
Personal Impact
“It’s soul-crushing. I’ve watched the worst things one can imagine. “I’m afraid this job will scar me for life,” Rahel Gebrekirkos, one of the contractors interviewed, said. She described the support personnel as “ill-equipped, unprofessional, and under-qualified.” Moderators frequently turned to drugs to cope and complained of intrusive thoughts, depression, and other problems.
Ongoing Relevance
We’ve heard some of this before, but it is relevant to hear that it is happening still. There are several reports of this type, but others are more personal stories or take different formats.
Personal Story: Yasser Yousef Alrayes
For instance, Yasser Yousef Alrayes is a data annotator in Syria, working to pay for his higher education. He and his roommate work together on visual annotation tasks like parsing images of text, as he points out that they are often poorly defined and have frustrating client demands. He chose to document his work in the form of a short film. That is well worth eight minutes of your time.
Future Plans
One of the project leaders, Milagros Miceli of DAIR and TU Berlin told me that. They had not seen any comments or changes from the companies indicated in the report, but it was still early. The results seem strong enough for them to return for more.
Anecdotes vs. Statistics
No doubt, some will discount these reports for the very quality that makes them valuable: their anecdotal nature. But while it’s easy to lie with statistics, anecdotes always carry at least some truth in them, for these stories are taken directly from the source.
