Milagros Miceli

Behind the Face of AI 💥 «¿Sabías que podes estar hablando con un trabajador precarizado en vez de un chatbot? No es automatización completa. Es trabajo humano desplazado hacia el ocultamiento, donde la precarización no se nota tanto» 🎯 @milamiceli.bsky.social @dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social

This is a good opportunity to remind everyone that all pieces in the DWI can be used as classroom material.
Our students deserve to know that chatbots in their favorite social media and messaging apps rely on precarized workers.

➡️ data-workers.org/france/

Tackling the Ethics of AI Through the Making of GHOST IN THE MACHINE: Part 2

Our final Sundance event is a FREE, VIRTUAL panel on a topic that we don't talk nearly enough about: the unseen labor costs of the AI industry.

More info below but here's the sign-up link, it's tomorrow morning!

From Lúcio's report: “This account demonstrates that the challenges of moderation go far beyond graphic and disturbing content. They are rooted in a business model that treats human beings as disposable resources.”

Full report available at data-workers.org/lucio/

Three images of Milagros Miceli giving a talk in Chillan, Chile

Milagros Miceli dressed in a tropical-patterned blazer next to President Gabriel Boric at La Moneda

Audience at the opening of Congreso Futuro at the Parliament of Chile

Milagros Miceli at the main stage of Congreso Futuro

What a privilege it was to join @congresofuturo.bsky.social in Chile 🇨🇱!
I spoke on the main stage in Santiago, traveled south to give a talk in Chillán, joined the colloquium "Pensar la IA desde el Sur," discussed AI regulation at the Ministry of Science, and even met President Boric at La Moneda!

Proud to be included in Business Insider’s AI Power List, which highlights the 25 most influential people in AI this year.

This recognition reflects not only my research trajectory, but more importantly, the key role data workers play in the AI industry and the urgent need to do better by them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcDbUHM1a0U

«A veces la gente cree que, por ejemplo, está hablando con un chatbot sexual y en realidad es un trabajador de Kenia precarizado»

No dejen de ver esta entrevista de @norabar.bsky.social con @milamiceli.bsky.social derribando mitos frutos del hype en torno a la IA: www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcDb...

AND ANOTHER THING, WHILE I'M AT IT:

ENOUGH WITH THESE BULLSHIT CLAIMS THAT AI CAN REPLACE HUMAN TRANSLATORS!!!

Translation is *not* the science of finding the perfect definition of a word from a foreign language and putting that definition into the text.

Translators translate, of course. But!

Qué miedo da esto!👇

pizza 🍕 @pizza990 This doesn't just put artists at risk, it puts every Twitter user at risk. Anyone can use AI to edit images of real people posted on this platform, simply a family photo, PAST OR PRESENT. Why is this enabled by default without any consent of the people who shared those images? https://x.com/pizza990/status/2003889484904206767?s=20

🚨 Nueva función de Twitter/X para fomentar el ABUSO y la violación de derechos. Ahora cualquier usuario podrá editar a través de Grok cualquier imagen de cualquier usuario de la plataforma, sean obras de arte, fotos familiares, etc. No hay opción para desactivarlo o impedirlo 🚨

📷 @pizza990 on X

Must read new report from @dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social co-researcher Michael Geoffrey Asia. Find more at data-workers.org and read more about the DWI project at www.dair-institute.org/projects/dat...

Data Workers’ Inquiry continues its excellent project of amplifying voices of the human labor too often overlooked in debates about genAI. This latest report from Michael Geoffrey Asia is an essential read.

Y'all wanna warn your friends before you get on the "AI companion" bandwagon and warn your friends, help them get informed.

This report co-prepared by @dairinstitute.bsky.social is *horrifying*. data-workers.org/wp-content/u...

It turns out that, yes, you can give cis people gender dysphoria by forcing them to do immersive sexual roleplay in shifts, without regard to their gender identity and sexuality.

gen ai as a project exists to ingest the other and reconfigure it as white supremacist fantasy

The Emotional Labor Behind AI Intimacy, by Michael Geoffrey Asia. Imagine confiding your most private fantasies to what you believe is an unfeeling algorithm that cannot judge or remember. Now imagine that on the other side of that conversation is a man sitting in a...

Now imagine sharing your private fantasies with what you believe is a bot that cannot judge or remember. Just that, on the other side, is a man in a one-room home in Nairobi, pretending to be an AI companion.

That man is Michael, and this is his story: data-workers.org/michael/

'We charged $100 a month for an AI that was really just two guys surviving on pizza' says the co-founder of a company now valued at $1 billion And that tall guy buying a movie ticket was just two mischievous kids in a trench coat.

Or when the CEO of Fireflies admitted that his supposedly AI-powered transcription service originally ran on “two guys surviving on pizza“?
www.pcgamer.com/software/ai/...

A tech CEO has been charged with fraud for saying his e-commerce startup was powered by AI, when it was actually just using manual human labor | Fortune The actual automation, Justice Department officials say, was "effectively zero percent."

Or the CEO of shopping startup Nate, who was charged with fraud for telling investors and customers that their system was powered by AI, but instead used human labor in the Philippines and Romania?
fortune.com/2025/04/11/a...

Amazon's Just Walk Out technology relies on hundreds of workers in India watching you shop Amazon promoted Just Walk Out as AI-powered cashierless technology. But the tech reportedly relied on workers in India for accuracy.

Remember the Amazon “Just Walk Out” supermarkets that were marketed as automated but actually relied on thousands of data workers in India?
www.businessinsider.com/amazons-just...

But Michael's story isn't an exception. AI impersonation is far more widespread than most people think.

Cover of the essay. It depicts a Black man, visibly tired and sad, holding a bleading heart that reads The Emotional Labor Behind AI Intimacy by Michael Geoffrey Asia.

Today, DWI publishes a powerful essay by @mgasia.bsky.social, who works impersonating an AI sex companion: data-workers.org/michael/

This piece offers a rare glimpse into the psychological and economic realities behind one of the fastest-growing sectors: AI-assisted intimacy.

«The global AI industry is fueled by hidden and precarized labor: workers who collect and annotate data, keep data centers running, and mine rare earth minerals—not to mention the artists, translators, writers, and actors whose work fuels so-called generative AI» 📢 NEW PAPER!

“Research doesn't have to be exploitative.”

If you are interested in the methodology behind the Data Workers' Inquiry Project (@dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social), this is the paper for you.

Research doesn't have to be exploitative.👇🏽

I'm thrilled to see this piece in the world. Through it, Dr. Milagros Miceli and her team have put some language to the worker-led methodology which they have developed.

Thank you, Karen! Your work has been a great source of inspiration as we developed the methodology

In sum, this work is not only a methodological account but a proposal for reorienting AI research toward worker-led knowledge rather than extraction.

Read the full article here: ojs.aaai.org/index.php/AI...

Organizing Across Borders, by Joan Kinyua The Data Labelers Association is developing mutual support structures and fighting for better working conditions. This inquiry recounts our path to founding it and acknowledges our ongoing partnership...

Finally, WIRM fosters what Gramsci called "organic intellectuals" embedded in the material conditions and collective struggles of their class. It cultivates networks of solidarity and tools for analysis generated from within worker communities.
See for instance: data-workers.org/DLA/

Data Workers' Inquiry - Data Workers' Inquiry Data Workers' Inquiry

Second, we bring this approach into the AI domain. WIRM provides a way to illuminate the human labor underpinning AI systems while allowing workers to define the terms of that illumination.
Our repository is proof of that: data-workers.org#Inquiries

Table summarizing WIRM's phases and steps, linked to their respective challenges and tensions.

First, we systematize Workers’ Inquiry as a Research Methodology (WIRM). We focus on its political grounding, its architecture, and its operationalization, offering a step-by-step guide, examples, and a discussion of challenges and tensions.