"A significant share of the world’s “AI janitors” are low-wage workers tasked with labelling data, moderating disturbing content, and sanitizing AI outputs for global platforms often for less than $2 an hour and under gruelling conditions. The “magic” of AI, it turns out, is propped up by invisible labour in developing countries, whose health and well-being suffer as they review hateful, violent, or sensitive material to train or fix algorithms."
As artificial intelligence platforms flood the internet with “sloppy” output, a growing number of human workers are being called upon to fix AIs errors, from clunky code to cringe-worthy art.
This x 💯. These systems are simply regurgitated, massaged web surveillance slurpage. Nothing intelligent there at all.
Not that there are no uses for ML or LLMs in science/research. But what these techbros are pushing into every nook and cranny are simply a scam, a hook for eventual subscription fees.
Facebook content moderator speaks about mental health impact of her job, Tommy Meskill, RTE, 2021 rte.ie/news/ireland/2021/0512/…
The Platform Proletariat: How the artificial intelligence industry profits from an unprotected digital working class in Brazil, Tatiana Dias, Sofia Schurig, The Intercept, 2024 intercept.com.br/2024/07/22/ho…
Data Workers’ Inquiry: Global, radically participatory research initiative driven by data workers themselves. data-workers.org/
The Data Workers' Inquiry through @timnitGebru's DAIR Institute sheds light on this and the exploitative settings data workers, many in the Global South, find themselves in.
Glad to see this getting more coverage and needs to be part of every single AI discourse.
The Human Cost of Artificial Intelligence: Stories from the Digital Mines
Fasica fled war in Ethiopia, only to face digital trauma earning $1.50/hour training Facebook’s AI.
For eight hours a day, seated in a crowded office in Nairobi under constant CCTV surveillance, she watched humanity's darkest moments unfold on her screen
$1.50/hr ≈ KSh 240/hr ⇒ ≈ KSh 19,200/day (8 h) or ≈ KSh 384,000/month (40 h × 4 weeks). The official minimum wage in Nairobi is KSh 16,114/month, so this is 24× higher than the minimum. But the average monthly salary in Kenya is around KSh 80,000, so this equates to roughly 5× the average wage locally. Thus, $1.50/hr is excellent local pay, well above both minimum and average.
$1.50/hr ≈ KSh 240/hr ⇒ ≈ KSh 19,200/day (8 h) or ≈ KSh 384,000/month (40 h × 4 weeks). The official minimum wage in Nairobi is KSh 16,114/month, so this is 24× higher than the minimum. But the average monthly salary in Kenya is around KSh 80,000, so this equates to roughly 5× the average wage locally. Thus, $1.50/hr is excellent local pay, well above both minimum and average.
@chris Countries whose economies have been destroyed by Western imperialism now offer excellent slave wages to Big Tech. Advance your career by destroying your mental health as you watch European stabbings and USA child rape and murder. Perfect capitalism
Sure, we’re all tied together—but the planet’s a brutal feedback loop. The more we prop up billions with aid, meds, and logistics, the bigger the eventual cull. COVID showed how fast Earth heals when people pause. Delay the reset, and when it comes, it’s sharper, uglier, catastrophic. That’s the cycle: sink, swim, or get swept.
@chris I don't necessarily agree. Successful human evolution has as much to do with love and kindness, collaboration and community spirit. We are happiest in harmonious groups. And if there is one word that best describes early human success it's: fairness. This modern collapse-driven age is the result of macho hard men getting way out of balance. The macho individualist is the sure road to ruin.
I don't think there are any examples at all around the world except fallacious ones that actually in any way outside of tribes outside of insular tribes not even between tribes that in any real way through any real research suggest that that Utopian idea of kindness and fairness even outside of evil white imperialism colonialism fascism has ever manifested over any amount of time and is wishful thinking and Utopian delusion or temporary affliction.
It's strange because Europe doesn't really support the sharing of any stabbings or rapes or murders by anybody but ethnic Europeans and our media doesn't really cover stabbings child rape and murder by anybody but ethnic Europeans either. In fact if you suggest that anybody but ethnic Europeans are stabby, rapey, or murdery you can actually be arrested and go to jail.
At least that's what the right wing organs are saying about it.
That’s not a capitalism/pay issue, that’s law enforcement. Child abuse, stabbings, murders—those aren’t “AI labor” problems, they’re public-safety problems. And the fastest way societies deal with them is through police-state tactics: heavy surveillance, mental wards, zero-tolerance laws, draconian courts, and cops trained like tier-1 operators. If you want the maximum safety for the maximum people, that’s what does it—easy peasy lemon squeezy.
Back in ’96 I stayed on a subsistence farm in N. Thailand—every family sent one daughter to marry a Westerner or a son/daughter to grind in a factory. That cash built breezeblock houses, scooters, toilets. Same idea here: $1.50/hr looks tiny in the US, but in Nairobi it’s 5× local average and injects real currency into barter economies. Not slavery—remittances.
@chris Nothing but the same old imperialist twisted story; I know it well. We're destroying your people, we're destroying your environment, but, hey, we're bringing shitty jobs to lift you up a little after we crushed you down. Hey, Facebook, who is forcing your daughter to watch rape videos, Facebook is doing your daughter a favor. Facebook is the good guy. It's a great AI career path: do you have experience in watching rape-murder videos
I think you're taking away the agency of actual human being adults. I think you are paternalistic. I think you are suffering from extreme noblesse oblige because you're treating people who opt in to jobs and who take jobs and who get hired and who interview for jobs and you take away their agency and their ability to quit or not to take the job or not to suffer looking at rapes and so forth. You're infantilizing adult human beings.
> The white liberal posture assumes that the 92% of the world who aren’t white are helpless children needing endless rescue. That’s noblesse oblige in disguise—infantilizing adults who make their own choices. Real respect means acknowledging agency, responsibility, and autonomy. Treating whole populations as “oppressed children” isn’t solidarity—it’s patronizing condescension masquerading as virtue.
Setting aside for one moment that these countries' economies were devastated by decades of socialist rule; the fact remains that whatever the cause, the past cannot change and those workers today can do nothing else but choose the best of their available options.
Wishing they had better options does not help them. Trying to pressure companies in to removing their current best option will only leave them with worse options remaining. And we know axiomatically that this job is their best available option because if there were better options open to them they would go do those things instead.
So you are actually advocating to make some of the world's poorest people's lives worse. That's pretty rude.
@nicholas It’s uncomfortable, but true: many post-colonial states haven’t become Wakanda. Removing imperial powers didn’t guarantee stability or prosperity. Too often, socialism, warlords, corruption, or weak institutions stalled progress, even with vast resources. The tragedy isn’t colonists leaving—it’s that independence alone doesn’t build capacity, accountability, or growth.
@chris The colonialists and imperialist never left. Any country that tried for equality and decency got immediately couped by CIA or some European government (now China's in on the act). The mining oligarchs, etc., are the new imperialists. Must have our cheap resources. Otherwise, capitalist model doesn't work. @nicholas
@nicholas The devil’s trick was convincing us he doesn’t exist—America pulled the same. We never stopped being imperial, we just rebranded. Britain never fully let us go; we became its sin eater, recolonizing the globe under the flag of ‘democracy.’ 800+ bases and embassies aren’t charity—they’re empire dressed up as safety.
I don't even believe the colonists from Britain ever left America. We like making fun of Canada but...
Always hilarious when big government authoritarians blame the ills of big government authoritarianism on 'capitalism'. Capitalism is the free market, it doesn't need government force to work, its very definition is the absence of government interfering in the trade of goods and services amongst willing adults. In fact, the most brutal regimes in the history of the world were formed explicitly to eradicate capitalism, but the incentive for people to voluntarily work together to their mutual benefit is so strong it found a way to survive in the midst of Stalin's USSR, the Khmer Rouge, Mao's China, and North Korea, despite staggering penalties if caught. Supply and demand is not 'an economic system' that can be discarded like a suit that has fallen out of fashion; it is a law of nature as immutable as gravity.
there's free market without capitalism, and while i used to lack opinions against capitalism, i'm seeing more examples in my own lived experience that points to capitalism being over-exploitative. see simple examples such as the idea of intellectual property, as well as other less-repeated ones such as what prompted the book "Bullshit Jobs" and the existence of "markets" whose businesses serve as nothing more than tax or fee collectors
basically "capitalism" has the connotation of "exploit anything and everything" which outlives the usefulness of its original goal: to encourage the production and sale of innovative goods and services. now people aren't innovating and they're doing the Late Stage technique of cutting costs and raising the resultant prices for consumers
@wowaname @nicholas What you call exploitation I call optional opportunity. A job is exploitation if you define it that way, but it’s also a tradeoff people can enter or exit. Capitalism isn’t pure, but neither is socialism or the “free market.” Sanctions, monopolies, and power tilt every system. Even co-ops and grey/black markets show how any economy bends, leaks, and adapts.
i got laid off and implicitly burned from the IT sector mainly due to the AI myth and companies not knowing who to actually hire (you know, people with actual skillsets, not just miracle workers or H1B outsourced labour) so i can't speak of any sort of "option" in my opportunities. i would like to work, but a lot of markets are becoming impenetrable for new hires or people looking to continue work, unless you sell your soul and do government contracting. (preferably i'd like to start a nonprofit but even that's difficult to get into)
@wowaname @nicholas I feel you. I’m always on the edge of oblivion myself—pure grasshopper, never the ant. But in the end, it’s evolve or perish. One can blame AI, age, or the market, but survival’s on us: saving, investing, building side gigs, taking risks. It’s a sink-or-swim universe. Anyone unaware of their fragility has been blessed. All we can do is face the grind with compassion—for ourselves and others—even as we scramble to stay afloat.
$2/hr in India equals about ₹165/hr or ~₹26k/month for full-time work. Locally, that’s above average for unskilled or semi-skilled jobs (which often pay ₹10–20k/month) and close to entry-level white-collar salaries. In Tier 1 cities it’s just enough for a modest lifestyle; in Tier 2/3 towns it’s considered solid. So, by Indian standards, it’s okay to good money, depending on the city and skill level.
Who is Really Fueling your AI? Precarization and Resistance in Data Work. Wed, Sept. 17th, 2025
Weizenbaum Institute is hosting public event featuring keynote by Data Workers’ Inquiry principal investigator Dr. Milagros Miceli, who will discuss project’s approach, key findings, and methodology. Closing the Assembly, a panel of data workers will then present their research, reflections, and ongoing organizing initiatives, followed by an open exchange with the audience.
>The “magic” of AI, it turns out, is propped up by invisible labour this has only ever been news to people who don't work in any tech sector. we all already knew we were glorified machine janitors
"On occasion, she was asked to deal with extreme content, flagging violent and sexually explicit material generated by Gemini for removal, mostly text. Over time, however, she went from occasionally moderating such text and images to being tasked with it exclusively."
"There are several possible dates you might pick, but for me it will always be September 5th 2014 - when I committed the first sketch of a specification I called ActivityPump and pushed it to Github."
The obvious choice for ActivityPub’s birthday would be the 23rd of January 2018 - the day it was annointed as a W3C recommendation. That doesn’t seem quite right though - its not as if the spec came into existence in any sense upon that date. In fact, Mastodon implemented it before thne.
It wouldn’t be until November that I actually submitted (a revised and enhanced version of) that draft to the working group, but even then I had the very nucleus of the specification written down.
man erinnere sich nur an all die länder, die damals es geschafft hatten, ihre kutschenindustrie vor dem aufkommen der automobile zu schützen. welch grandiose erfolge sie im 20. jhd feiern konnten! verlässlichkeit durch technik! überholen ohne einzuholen!
all das werden merz und co auch für uns erreichen ...
Wachsende Wirtschaft und Wohlstand wird es auf Dauer nur geben, wenn wir die verbindlichen Pariser Klimaziele einhalten. Aus guten Gründen wurden die nach Jahrzehnten intensiver Debatte im Konsens aller Staaten beschlossen. Das ist inzwischen leider ein Wettlauf gegen die Zeit.
This article is about how AI interacts with people. It's got violence, death, child abuse, insanity, lead poisoning, and the Roman empire. It's a rough one, but I think a good one.
LLMs are Lead Part 4- Delusion, Psychosis, and Child Murder (Go to Part Three) This installment deals with self harm quite a lot. If you’re not in a good place right now, please skip this.
Google Photos just got a major AI upgrade ✨ Transform your still photos into natural-looking video clips with the new Veo 3 model. Plus, discover fresh creative tools to reimagine your memories in unique ways 🎨 Read more about these exciting features rolling out in the US.
Dozza sempre più satura: si rischia di doppiare la capienza
Sono 800 le/i detenute/i presenti, altre/i 100 potrebbero arrivare una volta chiusa la sezione giovani adulti. Si va verso le tre persone per cella, alcune donne già recluse anche nel nido. E da due mesi manca il ricambio delle lenzuola.
A Milano per rivendicare il diritto alla città @anarchia Per il 6 settembre a Milano è stata convocata la manifestazione nazionale per la difesa degli spazi sociali a seguito dello sgombero improvviso del Leoncavallo del 21 agosto. Che lo spazio fosse sotto attacco del Governo si sapeva, come si...
Any technical info (not tech news bullshit) website providing print styles should get tax breaks for caring enough.
I just printed a ‘page’ of tech expository that needlessly blew up to a ridiculous nine double-side sheets with all the useless web elements (links, nav, banner, … ), childish font size, over-expansion of images…
Yes, web is hard, time is short, and printing is trees. And most websites aren’t worth the juice they burn. Sad fact.
In a first for me, the #kernel of my #laptop upgraded on the move on the approach to the #ChannelTunnel and rebooted while under the #EnglishChannel. The irony here is that my #android #mobile phone has been unable to use #Wifi during either of my #Eurostar journeys of late. You win some, you lose some.
And this is exactly the intent of AI. To create dependency, addiction. AI is the ultimate form of child abuse, adult abuse. AI is not your friend. AI is a pimp and a predator. And this is exactly how it was designed. Google and Facebook are advertising companies. They want to use AI to addict you and sell you into data slavery. That's how they make the big profits.
(Agenzia Vista) Roma, 05 settembre 2025 "Siamo all'interno di fenomeni di una illegalità apocalittica e io parlo di questo da oltre 600 giorni: ci sta che ci sia il momento in cui mi dimentico di chiedere il pedigree a chi mi fa una foto con me.
Il colosso cinese presenta a Berlino un robot aspirapolvere lavapavimenti che copre superfici fino a 1000 metri quadri, ma non solo: ecco tutte le novità del gruppo
Our foster kittens have become a very handsome (and hungry) group. They’re just about ready for new homes (always tough to give them up, but at least we were able to give them a good start).
(Agenzia Vista) Roma, 04 settembre 2025 "Qui non si parla di donazioni, quando lavoro percepisco lo stipendio, non ho un conto corrente, non posso neanche affittare una macchina, ho tante complicazioni.
L'ideatore del forum al centro della bufera testimoniò agli agenti della Postale per mandare a processo Dario Vannucchi, accusato di pubblicare foto di ragazze prese dai social
(Agenzia Vista) Roma, 05 settembre 2025 Si è aperta con quattro incontri bilaterali (con i vertici parlamentari di Canada, USA, Ucraina, Parlamento Europeo) la partecipazione del Presidente della Camera Lorenzo Fontana al G7 Parlamentare, a Ottawa, e…
dana
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •This x 💯. These systems are simply regurgitated, massaged web surveillance slurpage. Nothing intelligent there at all.
Not that there are no uses for ML or LLMs in science/research. But what these techbros are pushing into every nook and cranny are simply a scam, a hook for eventual subscription fees.
dbrand666
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •reshared this
Gerry McGovern e GhostOnTheHalfShell reshared this.
JB Lièvremont
in reply to dbrand666 • • •Coincidentally, it also works with "Actually, Interns" 🙃
reshared this
GhostOnTheHalfShell reshared this.
La pantera roja 🇵🇸
in reply to dbrand666 • • •Toni Aittoniemi
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •J.A. Machete
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •Gerry McGovern reshared this.
Gerry McGovern
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •Open letter to President Biden from tech workers in Kenya, Kenya Tech workers, Foxglove, 2024
foxglove.org.uk/open-letter-to…
How Big Tech hides its outsourced African workforce, Stephanie Wangari, Gayathri Vaidyanathan, Rest of World, 2025
restofworld.org/2025/big-tech-…
‘It’s destroyed me completely’: Kenyan moderators decry toll of training of AI models, Niamh Rowe, The Guardian, 2023
theguardian.com/technology/202…
‘It’s destroyed me completely’: Kenyan moderators decry toll of training of AI models
Guardian staff reporter (The Guardian)GhostOnTheHalfShell reshared this.
eLearningTechie
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •Gerry McGovern reshared this.
Gerry McGovern
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •ChatGPT, Bing and Google rely on ‘ghost’ workers, Brian Merchant, Los Angeles Times, 2023
latimes.com/business/technolog…
The mounting human and environmental costs of generative AI, Sasha Luccioni, Ars Technica, 2023
arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/0…
Underage Workers Are Training AI, Niamh Rowe, Wired, 2023
wired.com/story/artificial-int…
The mounting human and environmental costs of generative AI
Ars Contributors (Ars Technica)Gerry McGovern
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •Facebook content moderator speaks about mental health impact of her job, Tommy Meskill, RTE, 2021
rte.ie/news/ireland/2021/0512/…
The Platform Proletariat: How the artificial intelligence industry profits from an unprotected digital working class in Brazil, Tatiana Dias, Sofia Schurig, The Intercept, 2024
intercept.com.br/2024/07/22/ho…
Data Workers’ Inquiry: Global, radically participatory research initiative driven by data workers themselves.
data-workers.org/
How the AI industry profits from an unprotected digital working class in Brazil
Sofia Schurig (Intercept Brasil)GhostOnTheHalfShell reshared this.
Ross Young
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •The Data Workers' Inquiry through @timnitGebru's DAIR Institute sheds light on this and the exploitative settings data workers, many in the Global South, find themselves in.
Glad to see this getting more coverage and needs to be part of every single AI discourse.
data-workers.org/
Data Workers' Inquiry - Data Workers' Inquiry
Data Workers InquiryGerry McGovern
in reply to Ross Young • • •@MightyRedPanda
Thanks. That's a great resource.
@timnitGebru
Hey Gus
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •Passwordsarehard4
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •Gerry McGovern reshared this.
Ryek Darkener
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •Gerry McGovern reshared this.
Gerry McGovern
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •The Human Cost of Artificial Intelligence: Stories from the Digital Mines
Fasica fled war in Ethiopia, only to face digital trauma earning $1.50/hour training Facebook’s AI.
For eight hours a day, seated in a crowded office in Nairobi under constant CCTV surveillance, she watched humanity's darkest moments unfold on her screen
By Uchechukwu Ajuzieogu
aylgorith.com/49bk
Chris ABRAHAM
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •The official minimum wage in Nairobi is KSh 16,114/month, so this is 24× higher than the minimum.
But the average monthly salary in Kenya is around KSh 80,000, so this equates to roughly 5× the average wage locally.
Thus, $1.50/hr is excellent local pay, well above both minimum and average.
Chris ABRAHAM
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •The official minimum wage in Nairobi is KSh 16,114/month, so this is 24× higher than the minimum.
But the average monthly salary in Kenya is around KSh 80,000, so this equates to roughly 5× the average wage locally.
Thus, $1.50/hr is excellent local pay, well above both minimum and average.
Gerry McGovern
in reply to Chris ABRAHAM • • •Chris ABRAHAM
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •Gerry McGovern
in reply to Chris ABRAHAM • • •Chris ABRAHAM
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •Gerry McGovern
in reply to Chris ABRAHAM • • •Chris ABRAHAM
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •Chris ABRAHAM
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •It's strange because Europe doesn't really support the sharing of any stabbings or rapes or murders by anybody but ethnic Europeans and our media doesn't really cover stabbings child rape and murder by anybody but ethnic Europeans either. In fact if you suggest that anybody but ethnic Europeans are stabby, rapey, or murdery you can actually be arrested and go to jail.
At least that's what the right wing organs are saying about it.
Gerry McGovern reshared this.
Chris ABRAHAM
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •Chris ABRAHAM
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •Gerry McGovern
in reply to Chris ABRAHAM • • •Chris ABRAHAM
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •Chris ABRAHAM
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •Nicholas Conrad
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •Setting aside for one moment that these countries' economies were devastated by decades of socialist rule; the fact remains that whatever the cause, the past cannot change and those workers today can do nothing else but choose the best of their available options.
Wishing they had better options does not help them. Trying to pressure companies in to removing their current best option will only leave them with worse options remaining. And we know axiomatically that this job is their best available option because if there were better options open to them they would go do those things instead.
So you are actually advocating to make some of the world's poorest people's lives worse. That's pretty rude.
Chris ABRAHAM
in reply to Nicholas Conrad • • •It’s uncomfortable, but true: many post-colonial states haven’t become Wakanda. Removing imperial powers didn’t guarantee stability or prosperity. Too often, socialism, warlords, corruption, or weak institutions stalled progress, even with vast resources. The tragedy isn’t colonists leaving—it’s that independence alone doesn’t build capacity, accountability, or growth.
Gerry McGovern
in reply to Chris ABRAHAM • • •The colonialists and imperialist never left. Any country that tried for equality and decency got immediately couped by CIA or some European government (now China's in on the act). The mining oligarchs, etc., are the new imperialists. Must have our cheap resources. Otherwise, capitalist model doesn't work.
@nicholas
Chris ABRAHAM
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •@nicholas
The devil’s trick was convincing us he doesn’t exist—America pulled the same. We never stopped being imperial, we just rebranded. Britain never fully let us go; we became its sin eater, recolonizing the globe under the flag of ‘democracy.’ 800+ bases and embassies aren’t charity—they’re empire dressed up as safety.
I don't even believe the colonists from Britain ever left America. We like making fun of Canada but...
Gerry McGovern reshared this.
Nicholas Conrad
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •opal
in reply to Nicholas Conrad • • •opal
in reply to opal • • •Chris ABRAHAM
in reply to opal • • •opal
in reply to Chris ABRAHAM • • •i got laid off and implicitly burned from the IT sector mainly due to the AI myth and companies not knowing who to actually hire (you know, people with actual skillsets, not just miracle workers or H1B outsourced labour) so i can't speak of any sort of "option" in my opportunities. i would like to work, but a lot of markets are becoming impenetrable for new hires or people looking to continue work, unless you sell your soul and do government contracting. (preferably i'd like to start a nonprofit but even that's difficult to get into)
>neither is socialism
well i'm not socialist 😀
Chris ABRAHAM
in reply to opal • • •Chris ABRAHAM
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •La pantera roja 🇵🇸
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •Gerry McGovern
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •Who is Really Fueling your AI? Precarization and Resistance in Data Work. Wed, Sept. 17th, 2025
Weizenbaum Institute is hosting public event featuring keynote by Data Workers’ Inquiry principal investigator Dr. Milagros Miceli, who will discuss project’s approach, key findings, and methodology. Closing the Assembly, a panel of data workers will then present their research, reflections, and ongoing organizing initiatives, followed by an open exchange with the audience.
tickets.weizenbaum-institut.de…
Who is Really Fueling your AI? Precarization and Resistance in Data Work.
tickets.weizenbaum-institut.deopal
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •this has only ever been news to people who don't work in any tech sector. we all already knew we were glorified machine janitors
Gerry McGovern
in reply to Gerry McGovern • • •AI drives modern slavery
"On occasion, she was asked to deal with extreme content, flagging violent and sexually explicit material generated by Gemini for removal, mostly text. Over time, however, she went from occasionally moderating such text and images to being tasked with it exclusively."
theguardian.com/technology/202…
How thousands of ‘overworked, underpaid’ humans train Google’s AI to seem smart
Guardian staff reporter (The Guardian)