Data as labor
Data labor: where you think about data provided by humans as a form of labor which powers artificial intelligence. But most individuals lack the bargaining power to negotiate a fair value for their data. The history of labour offers a hint about how things could evolve. Historically, if wages rose to acceptable levels, it was mostly due to unions. Similarly,“data-labor unions”, organisations that serve as gatekeepers of people’s data. They will negotiate rates, monitor members’ data work and ensure the quality of their digital output, for instance by keeping reputation scores. Unions could funnel specialist data work to their members and even organise strikes, for instance by blocking access to exert influence on a company employing its members’ data. Similarly, data unions could be conduits channelling members’ data contributions, all while tracking them and billing AI firms that benefit from them. Current obstacles to this include 1) lack of right legal framework 2) technology to keep track of data flows needs to be become better 3) development of class consciousness by people as data workers. It is likely that active forms of data labor (ex image labelling) and will be compensated better than passive forms of data labor.