The DOI matches its Crossref record; 32 of the 32 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
The trainer, the verifier, the imitator: Three ways in which human platform workers support artificial intelligence
Open accessAbstract
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.
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“As sociologists of technological innovation highlight, a lot of human labour is needed to fill the cracks of AI (Gray and Suri 2019;Tubaro and Casilli 2019;Tubaro et al. 2020).”
From Artificial intelligence and work: a critical review of recent research from the social sciences (2024) · cites this paper as Tubaro et al. 2020
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Metadata
- Authors
- Tubaro, P., Casilli, A. A., & Coville, M.
- Affiliations
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Télécom Paris (FR)
- Université de Poitiers (FR)
- Corresponding author
- Tubaro, Paola
- Venue
- Big Data & Society
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2020-01
- Volume
- 7
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 205395172091977
- ISSN
- 2053-9517 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W3018104257
- Cited by
- 262
- References
- 26
- Citations by year
- 2026: 44 · 2025: 61 · 2024: 48 · 2023: 38 · 2022: 45 · 2021: 19 · 2020: 7
- FWCI
- 36.46
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Big Data & Society (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- HAL (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- France Stratégie
- MSH Paris Saclay (17-MA07)
- Force Ouvrière - Institut de recherches économiques et sociales
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Digital Economy and Work Transformation
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Industrial relations › Legal and Labor Studies
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Ethics and Social Impacts of AI
- Keywords
- AI development, data annotation, machine learning training data, precarious employment, AI verification
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