Thoughts tagged "workers' rights"

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New research from AWU/CWU/Techquity on AI data workers in North America. “[L]ow paid people who are not even treated as humans [are] out there making the 1 billion dollar, trillion dollar AI systems that are supposed to lead our entire society and civilization into the future,” says one.

We identify four broad themes that should concern policymakers: Workers struggle to make ends meet. 86% of surveyed workers worry about meeting their financial responsibilities, and 25% of respondents rely on public assistance, primarily food assistance and Medicaid. Nearly two-thirds of respondents (66%) report spending at least three hours weekly sitting at their computers waiting for tasks to be available, and 26% report spending more than eight hours waiting for tasks. Only 30% of respondents reported that they are paid for the time when no tasks are available. Workers reported a median hourly wage of $15 and a median workweek of 29 hours of paid time, which equates to annual earnings of $22,620. Workers perform critical, skilled work but are increasingly hamstrung by lack of control over the work process, which results in lower work output and, in turn, higher-risk AI systems. More than half of the workers who are assigned an average estimated time (AET) to complete a task felt that AETs are often not long enough to complete the task accurately. 87% of respondents report they are regularly assigned tasks for which they are not adequately trained. With limited or no access to mental health benefits, workers are unable to safeguard themselves even as they act as a first line of defense, protecting millions of people from harmful content and imperfect AI systems. Only 23% of surveyed workers are covered by health insurance from their employer. Deeply involved in every aspect of building AI systems, workers recognize the wide range of risks that these systems pose to themselves and to society at large. Fifty-two percent of surveyed workers believe they are training AI to replace other workers’ jobs, and 36% believe they are training AI to replace their own jobs. 74% were concerned about AI’s contribution to the spread of disinformation, 54% concerned about surveillance, and 47% concerned about the use of AI to suppress free speech, among other issues.
“Ghost Workers in the AI Machine: U.S. Data Workers Speak Out About Big Tech's Exploitation”.
in Communications Workers of America.
We identify four broad themes that should concern policymakers: Workers struggle to make ends meet. Workers perform critical, skilled work but are increasingly hamstrung by lack of control over the work process, which results in lower work output and, in turn, higher-risk AI systems. With limited or no access to mental health benefits, workers are unable to safeguard themselves even as they act as a first line of defense, protecting millions of people from harmful content and imperfect AI systems. Deeply involved in every aspect of building AI systems, workers recognize the wide range of risks that these systems pose to themselves and to society at large.
Here's the problem: establishing that AI training requires a copyright license will not stop AI from being used to erode the wages and working conditions of creative workers. The companies suing over AI training are also notorious exploiters of creative workers, union-busters and wage-stealers.
Telling creative workers that they can solve their declining wages with more copyright is a denial that creative workers are workers at all. It treats us as entrepreneurial small businesses, LLCs with MFAs negotiating B2B with other companies. That's how we lose.
On the other hand, if we address the problems of AI and labor as workers, and insist on labor rights – like the Writers Guild did when it struck last summer – then we ally ourselves with every other worker whose wages and working conditions are being attacked with AI.
Our path to better working conditions lies through organizing and striking, not through helping our bosses sue other giant multinational corporations for the right to bleed us out.
“Neither the devil you know nor the devil you don't”.
Cory Doctorow in Pluralistic.
Here's the problem: establishing that AI training requires a copyright license will not stop AI from being used to erode the wages and working conditions of creative workers. The companies suing over AI training are also notorious exploiters of creative workers, union-busters and wage-stealers.
The components sourced from an intern fixing ChatGPT’s output just enough for it to run and the exhaustively tested ones from a senior developer are equivalent in the eyes of management.
And one is much, much cheaper than the other.
If you’re unlucky enough to have to use any of this garbage we’re shipping and calling ‘software’, now you know why it all feels a bit shit.
If you work as a software developer, it means employers will continue to emphasise frameworks over functionality because that makes you easier to replace. They will sacrifice software security to make your job easier to outsource. They will let their own businesses suffer by shipping substandard software because they believe they can recoup those losses at your expense.
This is what unions were made for
“React, Electron, and LLMs have a common purpose: the labour arbitrage theory of dev tool popularity”.
Baldur Bjarnason in his blog.
The evolution of software development over the past decade has been very frustrating. Little of it seems to makes sense, even to those of us who are right in the middle of it.