AI’s Dirty Secret: Sweatshops, Carbon, and the Race to the Bottom

 

AI’s rapid advancement comes with a hidden human cost. Not just the vast number of jobs that may be eliminated, but the little known digital sweatshops that are crucial to the ongoing development of AI itself.

In my recent WhoWhatWhy podcast, James Muldoon, associate professor of management at the University of Essex and co-author of Feeding the Machine, argues that the rapid advancement of AI technology comes with a significant human toll. Research by Muldoon and his colleagues exposes the often-overlooked exploitation of human capital in the Global South that lies behind the high-tech rollout of AI.