As we know, artificial intelligence systems are trained on vast amounts of data. Companies in this field rely on sub-contracted staff to deal with data. The staff is located domestically or abroad. They lack the benefits available to the regular staff on company’s pay-roll. It is rightly called ghost staff, and the work done by them — labelling data and rating responses — is ghost work.
There are millions of such data workers around the world. Their task is mundane and stressful. The wages are low. There is constant supervision. They are given scant training. All this is enough for bias sneaking into the AI system being developed.
Big Tech builds AI on the bulks of exploited workers.
US Lawmakers, led by Senator Markey has written to Big Tech firms a letter asking the companies about the working conditions of these workers.
Leave a Reply