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

TLDR

Digital platform labour, through micro‑workers recruited and managed on specialised platforms, is a structural, data‑intensive component that powers AI applications such as virtual assistants, self‑driving vehicles, and connected objects. The study anticipates policy implications for a future where data technologies marginalise and precarise human workers rather than replace them. Qualitative evidence shows that micro‑work serves three roles—AI preparation, AI verification, and AI impersonation—across contemporary AI production processes.

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.