How Artificial Intelligence fosters Global Inequalities

Tensions over AI's impact on human labor dominate public debate today. The opposite question is rarely asked, however: what does human labor do to AI? As a matter of fact, labor plays an important role in the production of machine learning solutions, but it is often overlooked. AI workers aren't just software developers and system engineers, they're also lesser-known and less well-paid data workers. Voice assistants, self-driving cars, and facial recognition tools are created through labor-intensive processes that involve crowdworkers, clickworkers, and microworkers performing tasks like image labeling, information sorting, voice sampling, and audio transcription.

Panoptiwork.eu and the Jantina Tammes School of Digital Society, Technology and AI invite you to join the talk:

HOW ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE FOSTERS GLOBAL INEQUALITIES
A Four-Country Study on Data Work

This presentation explores the working conditions and socio-demographic profiles of data workers across four low-, middle-, and high-income countries (Venezuela, Madagascar, Brazil, and France). The analysis is based on observations conducted by the DiPLab (Digital Platform Labor) research team from 2020 to 2023. By combining mixed-methods and primary data, we show how historical global inequalities still shape international digital labor and data supply chains.

The main speaker during the presentation is Antonio A. Casilli. He is professor of sociology at the Institut Polytechnique de Paris and researcher at the Internet and Society Centre (CIS) of the CNRS, the French national center for scientific research. In addition to numerous scientific publications in French, English and Italian, he is the author of the award-winning book "En attendant les robots" ("Waiting for the Robots. An Inquiry into Click Work", University of Chicago Press, forthcoming).

Programme

15.30 - Introduction by the Jantina Tammes School & Panoptiwork

15.50 - Keynote lecture by prof. Antonio A. Casilli

16.10 - Panel discussion moderated by Michele Molè (PhD student in Labour Law), with:

• Beryl ter Haar, Endowed Prof. European & Comparative Labour Law
• Tatiana Llaguno Nieves, Postdoc Researcher in Political Philosophy
• Seonok Lee, Lecturer Minorities & Multilingualism
• Wike Been, Assistant Professor in Sociology of Labour
• Femke Cnossen, Assistant Professor in Economic Geography
• George Azzopardi, Assistant Professor in Computer Science

17.10 - Q&A with the participants

17.30 - Reception

The event is generously funded by the YAG SER Fund (2022 and 2023) for interdisciplinary research by the University of Groningen and by the Jantina Tammes School of Digital Society, Technology and AI.

Organisers: Michele Molè, PhD student in Labour Law (m.mole@rug.nl) and Miguel Rudolf-Cibien, Research Master student in Political Philosophy (m.rudolf-cibien@rug.nl).