‘Who is going to pay us when we’re replaced by robots?’ The Indian factory workers told to film themselves for AI

When workers had cameras attached to them, they found it funny at first. But novelty soon turned to concern

Indian workers are wearing headcams to train AI to do their jobs | South China Morning Post

Workers are being paid to train AI to perform human tasks by using wearable cameras to record their actions.

Photos: India’s workers are training AI robots to take their jobs

Developers believe that feeding first-person footage into specialised AI models will help robots copy human behaviour.

Marxism & the Global South

A critical history of imperialism and dependency theory, from Marx on colonialism and Eurocentrism to Baran, Frank, Wallerstein, and Samir Amin.

Workers powering the AI industry face terrible conditions, but they shouldn’t have to – interview

Mark Graham, founder of the Fairwork initiative, notes that most of the labour in the AI supply chain is data work primarily done in low-income countries in poor conditions.

OII | The Hidden Human Cost of AI: In conversation with Professor Mark Graham

Professor Mark Graham highlights the hidden human cost of AI and shares observations from his latest book 'Feeding the Machine: the Hidden Human Labour Powering AI'.

Inside Facebook's African Sweatshop

Workers in the Nairobi office are among the lowest-paid workers for the platform anywhere in the world

James Muldoon, Mark Graham and Callum Cant: ‘AI feeds off the work of human beings’

The Fairwork trio talk about their new book on the ‘extraction machine’, exposing the repetitive labour, often in terrible conditions, that big tech is using to create artificial intelligence

Seven Theses from Feeding the Machine

New Book – Publication 18 July 2024 (UK) / 8 August 2024 (US)

Feeding the Machine: The Hidden Human Labour Powering AI

Egypt, The New Republic: Hunger strikes on the rigs, digital sweatshops & factories cleared for capital

Labor dispatch!

Less rice for your labor-value - The Wobbly World of Miftah's Words

...and more exploitation for your location!

Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century - Monthly Review

John Smith teaches international political economy at Kingston University in London. This paper has been abstracted from his book Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century, forthcoming from Monthly Review Press in... READ MORE

Labor-Value Commodity Chains: The Hidden Abode of Global Production - Monthly Review

Intan Suwandi is a frequent contributor to Monthly Review. This article is adapted from her book, Value Chains: The New Economic Imperialism, winner of the 2018 Paul M. Sweezy-Paul A.... READ MORE

Unequal exchange of labour in the world economy

Researchers have argued that wealthy nations rely on a large net appropriation of labour and resources from the rest of the world through unequal exchange in international trade and global commodity chains. Here we assess this empirically by measuring flows of embodied labour in the world economy from 1995–2021, accounting for skill levels, sectors and wages. We find that, in 2021, the economies of the global North net-appropriated 826 billion hours of embodied labour from the global South, across all skill levels and sectors. The wage value of this net-appropriated labour was equivalent to €16.9 trillion in Northern prices, accounting for skill level. This appropriation roughly doubles the labour that is available for Northern consumption but drains the South of productive capacity that could be used instead for local human needs and development. Unequal exchange is understood to be driven in part by systematic wage inequalities. We find Southern wages are 87–95% lower than Northern wages for work of equal skill. While Southern workers contribute 90% of the labour that powers the world economy, they receive only 21% of global income.

African Content Moderators Have Worse Mental Health than Global Peers, Study Finds

A new study finds African content moderators report worse mental health than global peers, amid low pay, precarious work, and exposure to traumatic content.

Tea production in Bangladesh

Bangladesh is an important tea-producing country. It is the 9th largest tea producer in the world, producing a total of 97.08 million kgs in 2019. Its tea industry dates back to British rule, when the East India Company initiated the tea trade in the hills of the Sylhet region. In addition to that, tea cultivation was introduced to Greater Chittagong in 1840. Today, the country has 166 commercial tea estates, including many of the world's largest working plantations. The industry accounts for 3% of global tea production, and employs more than 4 million people.

Colonial scars still shape Bangladesh tea workers’ struggle for rights

Bangladesh tea workers renew wage, union and land demands amid colonial-era labour legacies.

Exclusive: The $2 Per Hour Workers Who Made ChatGPT Safer

A TIME investigation reveals the difficult conditions faced by the workers who made ChatGPT possible