Kenyan workers are still the underpaid labor behind AI training, moderation, and sex chatbots. The Data Labelers Association is fighting back.

https://www.404media.co/ai-is-african-intelligence-the-workers-who-train-ai-are-fighting-back/

'AI Is African Intelligence': The Workers Who Train AI Are Fighting Back

Kenyan workers are still the underpaid labor behind AI training, moderation, and sex chatbots. The Data Labelers Association is fighting back.

404 Media

Michael Geoffrey Asia: "I worked on Meta-related projects under Sama and later took on roles at CloudFactory, TELUS International, TransPerfect DataForce, Appen, and NMS Philippines. In much of this work, I was tasked with impersonating and training AI companions—performing emotional labor that required intense psychological presence while remaining entirely invisible to the users who interacted with these systems."

https://data-workers.org/michael/

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 one-room home in Nairobi, working through the night while his wife and children sleep. That man is Michael, and this is his story.

Data Workers' Inquiry