Much of what’s known as ‘AI’ has nothing to do with progress — it’s about lobbyists pushing shoddy digital replacements for human labour that increase billionaire’s profits and make workers’ lives worse.
Few industries have been hit by AI as hard as translation. Rates are plummeting. Work is drying up. Translators are considering abandoning the field, or bankruptcy. These are their stories.
‘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 or displaced from the global majority.