Data as Labor

I'm interested in how human effort behind posts, edits, coding, moderation, creative work, curation of content, etc. fuels AI progress.

Key References

  1. 2023 · PaperThe Dimensions of Data Labor: A Road Map for Researchers, Activists, and Policymakers to Empower Data ProducersProceedings of the 2023 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency
  2. 2026 · PaperAre We Horses? Rethinking Data as LaborPhilosophy & Technology

More work in this topic

A not-totally-exhaustive (because there’s a lot of overlap between these themes) list of “outputs” that meet this theme.

2026Jun 2026BlogData labeling work should be dignified, not dismissedData Leverage
2026May 2026ShortpostN-gram search as posterior updating for data attributionData Leverage Short Posts
2026Feb 2026MediaNew Research Challenges Tech Giants to Recognize Users as Laborers, Not ByproductsCarnegie Mellon University Tepper School of Business
2026Jan 2026BlogThe Coding Agent Data DealData Leverage
2026Jan 2026BlogCoding agents are (1) a big deal, (2) very relevant to data leverage, and (3) able to help build tools that support data leverage!Data Leverage
2025May 2025BlogEach Instance of "AI Utility" Stems from Some Human Act(s) of Information Recording and RankingData Leverage
2024Nov 2024BlogPerplexity CEO's Interaction with Striking New York Times Workers Does Not Reflect Well on the AI IndustryData Leverage
2024May 2024TalkEconomic Concentration and Dispossessive Data Use: Can HCI Solve Challenges from and to AI?SIGCHI 2024 Outstanding Dissertation Award
2024Feb 2024WritingWhere Biden’s AI policies fall short in protecting workers.The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
2023Aug 2023Media'Data leverage' and the Harry Potter test: How much is a single book worth to a giant AI model?Business Insider
2023Jul 2023WritingA roadmap toward empowering the labor force behind AI.Montreal AI Ethics Institute Research Summaries
2023Jun 2023MediaWe are all AI’s free data workersMIT Technology Review
2022Dec 2022BlogChatGPT is Awesome and Scary: You Deserve Credit for the Good Parts (and Might Help Fix the Bad Parts)Data Leverage
2022Nov 2022WorkshopEthical Tensions, Norms, and Directions in the Extraction of Online Volunteer WorkWorkshop at CSCW
2022Nov 2022WorkshopMisleading Tweets and Helpful Notes: Investigating Data Labor by Twitter Birdwatch UsersACM CSCW Posters
2021Jul 2021WritingGitHub Copilot and the Exploitation of "Data Labor": A Wake-Up Call for the Tech IndustryPSA Computing Blog
2021Apr 2021PaperA Deeper Investigation of the Importance of Wikipedia Links to Search Engine ResultsProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction
2021Mar 2021WritingWhy You're an Expert Language Model TrainerPSA Computing Blog
2020Sep 2020WritingDon't give OpenAI all the credit for GPT-3: You might have helped create the latest 'astonishing' advance in AI tooPSA Computing Blog
2020Sep 2020BlogDon’t give OpenAI all the credit for GPT-3: You might have helped create the latest “astonishing” advance in AI tooData Leverage