The Unseen Labor Behind Technological Progress

The invisible hands that shape the future of artificial intelligence. Behind the sleek, autonomous vehicles that promise to revolutionize transportation, lies a hidden workforce of manual annotators, toiling in obscurity. Their labor, a crucial component in the development of self-driving cars, is often outsourced to countries with lower labor costs, such as Venezuela, Kenya, and the Philippines. These workers, tasked with labeling and annotating images, are the unsung heroes of the AI revolution.

Their work, painstaking and tedious, enables machines to “learn” and “understand” the world around them. The data they provide, meticulously crafted and curated, is the foundation upon which AI models are built. In a short film, “Their Eyes,” the daily —s of these workers are brought to light. The documentary sheds light on the strategies they employ to make sense of their work, and to organize and improve their working conditions.

It is a glimpse into the extractive reality that underpins many of our current AI systems. The workers’ stories, though largely untold, are a testament to the human cost of technological progress. As AI continues to advance, it is imperative that we acknowledge and appreciate the human labor that makes it possible.