Many widely used artificial intelligence products depend on people to perform repetitive work to train and maintain the systems, even though the technology is often presented as if it runs on its own.
A significant share of those workers are paid low wages and live in the Global South. Focus on the AI boom is putting more attention on questions of pay, labor protections, and who ultimately benefits from growth in the industry.
Here's what to know
In an interview with Democracy Now! in late August, sociologist Antonio Casilli highlighted the largely unseen workforce behind commercial AI, including people handling data annotation and content moderation.
Casilli — author of Waiting for Robots: The Hired Hands of Automation and co-writer of the documentary In the Belly of AI — underscored that AI products often framed as self-sustaining still rely on workers to keep them operating.
In the interview, he said that workers "are purposely hidden by the companies that produce AI because they are the secret ingredient of AI itself."
According to Casilli, more than 160 million people worldwide are doing this data work. At that scale, AI looks less like a replacement for human labor than a restructuring of it, with difficult and poorly paid tasks often kept out of public view.
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The interview arrived amid a wider debate about employment after Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates argued in a recent essay that AI could profoundly reshape jobs. In the essay, Gates wrote that "AI will either be the greatest equalizer ever invented, or the worst source of injustice."
More background
Public discussion often centers on AI as a future threat to jobs, but the technology is already changing working conditions for millions of people, many of whom live in low- and middle-income countries. Not only that, but many workers involved in training data and content moderation operate in fragmented gig-style arrangements that can be unstable, underpaid, and a risk to well-being.
Meanwhile, consumers and businesses are using chatbots, image generators, search tools, and recommendation systems without seeing the exploitative labor chain behind them. They may also be voting on AI-related policies, such as those regarding data center development, without understanding the human costs of the technology, even as AI company owners stand to reap huge financial rewards.
What's being done?
Some data workers are starting to organize and demand recognition for the role they play. Labor that stays hidden is easier to underpay, while greater transparency can increase pressure for better standards.
Among the demands emerging from that organizing are calls for fairer wages, employment protections, and equitable treatment.
Where can I learn more?
The human labor behind AI is one piece of a bigger story about the industry's rapid expansion. As companies pour money into growth, fights over jobs, security, and resources are intensifying:
• Public outcry against AI is rising over jobs, security, and resource use.
• Big Tech's $725 billion AI boom is pushing expansion faster than power grids can handle.
• Utilities are signing unprecedented deals with data centers as AI demand reshapes energy costs.
These developments put AI labor issues in a broader context, alongside strain on infrastructure, the environment, and public trust. Taken all together, they help explain why disputes over fair pay, protections, and accountability may be getting harder to ignore.
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