The trainer, the verifier, the imitator: Three ways in which human platform workers support artificial intelligence

Paola Tubaro, Antonio Casilli (casilli@enst.fr) and Marion Coville (marion.coville@gmail.com)
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Antonio Casilli: SID - Sociologie Information-Communication Design - I3 SES - Institut interdisciplinaire de l’innovation de Telecom Paris - Télécom Paris - IMT - Institut Mines-Télécom [Paris] - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris - I3 - Institut interdisciplinaire de l’innovation - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, SES - Département Sciences Economiques et Sociales - Télécom Paris - IMT - Institut Mines-Télécom [Paris] - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris, IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris
Marion Coville: IAE Poitiers - Institut d'Administration des Entreprises (IAE) - Poitiers - UP - Université de Poitiers = University of Poitiers, CEREGE [Poitiers, La Rochelle] - Centre de recherche en gestion [EA 1722] - UP - Université de Poitiers = University of Poitiers - ULR - La Rochelle Université

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Abstract: This paper sheds light on the role of digital platform labour in the development of today's artificial intelligence, predicated on data-intensive machine learning algorithms. Focus is on the specific ways in which outsourcing of data tasks to myriad 'micro-workers', recruited and managed through specialized platforms, powers virtual assistants, self-driving vehicles and connected objects. Using qualitative data from multiple sources, we show that micro-work performs a variety of functions, between three poles that we label, respectively, 'artificial intelligence preparation', 'artificial intelligence verification' and 'artificial intelligence impersonation'. Because of the wide scope of application of micro-work, it is a structural component of contemporary artificial intelligence production processes - not an ephemeral form of support that may vanish once the technology reaches maturity stage. Through the lens of micro-work, we prefigure the policy implications of a future in which data technologies do not replace human workforce but imply its marginalization and precariousness.

Keywords: machine learning; artificial intelligence; datafied production processes; micro-work; Digital platform labour (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-big, nep-cmp and nep-pay
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-02554196v1
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

Published in Big Data & Society, 2020, 7 (1), pp.205395172091977. ⟨10.1177/2053951720919776⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02554196

DOI: 10.1177/2053951720919776

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