“I hope this isn’t for weapons.” How Syrian data workers train AI
The development and training of AI systems depend on hundreds of millions of data workers. Many of them are situated...
Milagros Miceli is a sociologist and computer scientist, leading the research group Data, Algorithmic Systems, and Ethics at the Weizenbaum-Institut. She is also a researcher with the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR). Milagros’s research is focused on labor conditions and power asymmetries in outsourced data work, examining their impact on machine learning datasets. Through a diverse array of worker-centric methodologies, she actively engages communities of precarized data workers from the Global Majority in action-research projects. Her broader interests include questions of legitimacy and knowledge production in data, community-led research, labor organizing, and the intersection of critical data studies and data activism.
The development and training of AI systems depend on hundreds of millions of data workers. Many of them are situated...