Antonio Casilli and Julian Posada were both invited by the independent media outlet Democracy Now! to discuss their research on the hidden human labor behind artificial intelligence. In the interview, they take a deep dive into the hidden AI data workforce; the men and women whose labor makes chatbots and large language models (LLMs) possible, and who are increasingly becoming the new factory workers of the digital economy. Drawing on their research in Kenya, Madagascar, and Venezuela, they explore the working conditions of these workers across global labor markets, highlighting the significant inequalities between countries and, most importantly, bringing workers’ own voices to the forefront as they fight for dignity, recognition, and better working conditions. To see Antonio Casilli’s Interview click here And to see Julian Posada’s interview click here

In a recent article for Nouvel Obs, Thomas Lebonniec and Neil S. question the intentions behind a proposed law to ban children under the age of fifteen from accessing social media. Their argument is straightforward: protecting children online is a legitimate and urgent concern, but age restrictions should not become a pretext for introducing systematic digital identity controls at the expense of fundamental privacy rights. For the authors, identity verification is a strategy of obfuscation: by placing the emphasis on users’ identities and ages, it risks diverting attention from the ways in which platforms themselves produce and regulate harmful content, while opening the door to forms of mass surveillance in the name of protecting minors online. Lebonniec instead calls on policymakers to take a closer look at data workers, and more specifically at content moderators, the workers who put platforms moderation guidelines into practice. Their work can help explain why some accounts identified as belonging to sexual predators are not removed, why potentially dangerous content remains online, and why harmful material can sometimes slip through the platforms’ moderation systems. This, in turn, means that legislators should pay closer attention to both the moderation guidelines themselves and the working conditions under which moderators apply them. These workers are routinely exposed to disturbing and psychologically demanding content, often at the cost of their own mental health, while being paid very little for work that is central to the safety and governance of digital platforms. Read the full article in French here

DiPLab associate, Julian Possada (Assistant Professor at Yale University) was recently interviewed by Seth Camillo and Caroline Risberg for the podcast The Internet is Crack. In his book, “Platform Extractivism: Data Work and the People Powering Artificial Intelligence“, forthcoming at the University of California Press in October 2026, he examines the often invisible labor that makes AI and digital platforms possible, focusing on the workers, data practices, and extractive processes that underpin today’s AI systems. In this one-hour-long podcast, Julian Possada discusses the hidden labour behind artificial intelligence, how platforms source work from workers in the Global South, what this type of work actually entails, and how it perpetuates colonial patterns. He draws a few examples from his books and discusses the reality of data workers in Venezuela, a country specifically targeted by data annotation platforms because of its widespread internet access and the inflation crisis that has been ongoing for several years. You can listen to the podcast on Youtube

Congratulation to Antonio Casilli for his nomination by the Villa Albertine, the French Institute for Culture and Education to represent DiPLab at SXSW. South by Southwest is a major culture and technology festival that will take place in Texas next March. Antonio Casilli will discuss AI, labor, and the environment, and this festival will also be an incredible way to amplify the voices of of activists workers and scholars, from all around the world. Unfortunately, voting has already been closed. Looking forward to hearing Antonio’s speech, “It Takes a Planet (and Millions of Workers) to Make AI,” should it be selected.

It is now less than a month to go until the start of the 9th annual conference of the International Network on Digital Labor (INDL-9, 9-11 September 2026): AI Supply Chains: Building an interdisciplinary research agenda for AI and labour. DiPLab, along with Yale University, ACM SIGGCAS, and the Geneva Graduate Institute, is truly delighted to be hosting such a vibrant international community of researchers, practitioners and activists at the International Labour Organization (ILO). DiPLab has allocated 10 small scholarships (EUR 400 each) to support travel, accommodation, and meal expenses of promising INDL-9 presenters. Scholarship will be awarded to recipients during the welcome address of the conference. Obtention is conditional on actual participation. After a careful selection process, the following ten applicants have been awarded a scholarship: * Kinchan Chakma * Prachi Sharma * Fitahiana Razafimahenina * Sonam Rai * Shikha Shalini * Amanda Biazzi * Prachi Tayade * Saadeddine Igamane * José Ángel Cerón Hernández * Fasica Gebrekidan We would like to extend our sincere thanks to the selection committee (Matheus Viana Braz, Stella Lopez, Marco Marrone, Myriam Raymond, and Iraklis Vogiatsis) for their time, care, and thoughtful consideration in a highly competitive selection process with a large number of outstanding applications.

Paola Tubaro was invited to give a talk at the ASOR Institute in Santiago in early July, and shared some results of her research in order to deepen dialogue on these important topics. She discussed how algorithmic management comes with a promise of higher productivity, but also increases surveillance in companies, while the apparent autonomy of self-employed workers on platforms—from Rappi delivery drivers to Workana designers—proves to be illusory. Her presentation, largely though not exclusively based on this open-access book chapter, analyzed the consequences of these transformations on job quality at two key stages of the AI life cycle: its production through human labor (so-called “data work”) and its deployment in workplaces across various sectors, from logistics to healthcare. Taken together, they reveal how AI accelerates preexisting trends in the global economy: the outsourcing of business functions while maintaining control over production—a phenomenon studied by D. Weil as the “fissured workplace”—and a “regime of dispersion,” first theorized by C. Datchary, in which workers manage multiple disconnected tasks. To protect job quality, she argued, corporate strategies and labor regulations must address the cognitive overload associated with fissuring, develop worker-centered organizational models, and implement safeguards for all users. The Millennium Institute for Authority and Social Regulation (ASOR), recently created in Chile, aims to conduct cutting-edge interdisciplinary research on the decline and reconfiguration of authority relationships in contemporary society and their impacts on social regulation. Authority, claim the founders of the Institute, is a pervasive social mechanism that is in place whenever there are power asymmetries. How people manage authority – in the family, school, workplace etc. – affects social cohesion and the extent to which (un)healthy relations of domination may arise. The rise of algorithmic management, especially AI-supported, is widely thought to affect labour relationships, endowing our bosses with new tools or even – as in the exemplary book by Aloisi and De Stefano) that algorithms actually are our new bosses. At the same time, the rise of platform labour – also closely linked to the AI boom – has promoted the model of independent workers who have no boss. Authority in the workplace changes gets more fragmented, disrupting traditional relational models, not only vertically (the hierarchical chain of command), but also horizontally (team composition, collegial work). What are the effects?

Thomas Le Bonniec was invited to speak on the 23rd of June, to the “Fight for Us not for them” event, held in Brussels, by organizations opposing the deregulation push on digital rights and especially the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) His presentation drew on Cecilia Rikap’s theory of digital dependency to argue that four main flows of data and knowledge currently move from the EU to the US for AI training purposes. Le Bonniec and Rikap argues that the Digital Omnibus (a series of amendment to the RGPD aimed to weaken it’s regulatory constraint) is going to accelerate these flows, and backfire on any innovation and digital sovereignty goals that have been set by European Institutions. The LeakyLM project, directed by the IMDEA Networks Institute, revealed that there were hidden data transfers when using the interface of 4 of the most commonly used LLMs. An other projetc in wich Le Bonniec is currently working and whose results will be released after the summer, has studied the behiavour of one work platform for “AI training” and found no fewer than 16 trackers on it. These flows are actually feeding directly into the AI for military use sector, as the same clients of this platform are engaged with the US department of war. Through his presentation, Thomas Le Bonniec suggests a few answers to the question : So what is there to be done, as the digital omnibus will accelerate the demotion of the EU into a digital periphery from which data and knowledge are extracted? Specifically on his last slide, where he suggests recommendations to repel modifications on articles 4, 9, 12, 13, and 88, of the GDPR, and embedding into law at the very least the algorithmic justice principle. He also argues that consent should be the sole legal basis for using personal data for AI slide thomasDownload

Edemilson Paraná invites Paola Tubaro to participate in a special issue published in the journal Globalizations that critically interrogates the convergence of environmental sustainability and digitalization. Governments and multi-lateral institutions frame the “twin transition” as a strategy to foster economic growth and durable social prosperity at the same time. However, Paraná argues in his introductory article (co-authored with Rodrigo Santaella-Gonçalves), this agenda is shaped by market logics and geopolitical competition, in ways that ultimately contradict the social and ecological goals it supposedly supports. The special issue has been designed to offer a systemic political-economy perspective on this inconsistency, grounded in critical social sciences and heterodox economics. Overall, it shows how the structural drivers of digitalisation can constrain its green potential and identifies pathways for redirecting the transition towards socially equitable and ecologically sustainable transformations. Paola Tubaro’s article within the issues aims to reconcile two separate trends in the study of the impacts of artificial intelligence (AI), one focused on the natural and the other on the social surroundings that supply resources for its production and use. She introduces the concept of the ‘dual footprint’ as a heuristic device to capture the commonalities and interdependencies between them. For that, she uses two in-depth case studies, each illustrating international flows of raw materials (nature) and of labour services (society). Case studies are a preliminary illustration of a broader idea, that will need to be developed further: that the AI industry is a value chain that spans national boundaries and perpetuates inherited global inequalities. Specifically, she uses the case of Argentina as a provider to the United States and Madagascar as a provider to France, Japan and South Korea. It appears that the countries that drive AI development (here, the United States, France, Japan and South Korea) generate a massive demand for inputs and trigger social costs that, through the value chain, largely fall on more peripheral actors (here, Argentina and Madagascar). While Argentina and Madagascar differ under many respects, in both cases initial hopes of jobs and prosperity have failed to materialise as predominant outsourcing arrangements reinforce informality and precariousness without preventing environmental damage. Put differently, the arrangements in place distribute the costs and benefits of AI unequally, resulting in unsustainable practices and preventing the upward mobility of relatively more disadvantaged countries. The concept of the dual footprint is useful because it grasps how the environmental and social dimensions of the dual footprint emanate from similar underlying socio-economic processes and geographical trajectories. To freely access the article click here

Thomas Le Bonniec, DiPLab PhD researcher, was interviewed by Pierric Marissal for L’Humanité about Palantir Technologies and its growing presence in Europe. The journalist describes Palantir as a technofascist company that profits from the military and war industries and actively contributes to the development of a mass-surveillance society. Thomas Le Bonniec also highlights Palantir’s strong presence in Europe, including within political circles. Perhaps surprisingly — or perhaps not — the company has found significant support among social-democratic parties. In France, progressive parties flirt with the US tech giant. French Socialist Party appointed Julie Martinez, a former Palantir data protection officer, as spokesperson and later as a candidate in Clichy-la-Garenne. Asked about Palantir’s role in tracking migrants in the US, she dismissed it as “fake news,” while expressing pride in the company’s work with France’s intelligence agency, the DGSI. She was also endorsed by the French Communist Party (PCF). In Switzerland, meanwhile, the government has stated that it does not want to work with Palantir, amid concerns that the company could act as a “Trojan horse” for US intelligence and mass data collection. In the UK, the Labour government signed a £240 million, three-year contract with Palantir, while the German army has been using Palantir software for at least two years. As Thomas Le Bonniec puts it: > “It is impossible to be antifascist while collaborating with Palantir. It is > impossible to be pro-European and collaborate with Palantir. It is antinomic.” Read the full article in L’Humanité: https://www.humanite.fr/monde/etats-unis/palantir-ce-quil-faut-savoir-de-lentreprise-technofasciste-americaine-en-croisade-pour-le-futur-de-loccident

For years, Julian Posada (Yale Assistant Professor and DiPLab research associate) has been one of the architects of the field of digital labor studies. From helping shepherd the transition from the European Network on Digital Labor (ENDL, 2017–2018) to the International Network on Digital Labor (INDL, 2019–present), to co-organizing three consecutive INDL conferences, he has been present at every stage of a research community finding its shape and its ambitions. Today, INDL has created several regional chapters, in Middle East and Africa, in Latin America, and now (thanks to Julian Posada) in North America, too. This foundation has its first public moment: a Symposium on Labor and Artificial Intelligence, hosted at Yale University on April 28 and 29, 2026. The event brings together scholars and practitioners to examine how workers are building, using, and pushing back against AI systems. The programme opens with a keynote by Julia Ticona and closes with a roundtable featuring organizers from across the platform economy. Researchers and doctoral students are especially encouraged to attend the doctoral colloquium on April 28 (1:00–5:30 PM, KT 401), where emerging scholars can workshop their research alongside peers ahead of the main symposium on April 29 (9:00 AM–5:00 PM, HQ 134).

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the Belly of AI, directed and written by Henri Poulain and DiPLab’s own Antonio A. Casilli, takes research out of academic journals and into television screens and cinemas. Over the coming weeks, the documentary is screening across Europe bringing open questions about the human and environmental cost of AI to new audiences. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 14 April 2024 — Stockholm, Sweden Bio Skandia A free public screening at Stockholm’s Bio Skandia cinema. A panel discussion follows, with Teresa Cerratto Pargman, Melanie R., Anna Essén and Johan Fredrikzon representing Stockholm University, KTH, the Swedish Red Cross, and Stockholm School of Economics. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 19 April 2026 — Rotterdam, Netherlands Kino Rotterdam, 10:30–13:30 Hosted by SocTalk and the Platform Labor Group, EUR A free screening followed by a live discussion with screenwriter Antonio A. Casilli, joined by platform work and AI researchers Damion Bunders (UU), Francisca Grommé (EUR), Floor Fiers (UvA), João Gonçalves (EUR), and Martien Schaub (EUR). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 30 April 2026 — Rome, Italy CGIL Nazionale, Corso d’Italia 25 (TBA) Italy’s largest trade union confederation screens the film at its national headquarters, in preparation for May Day. Director Henri Poulain will join live via video link. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The podcast Penser les Luttes (Radio Parleur / Le Média TV) has just released a new episode titled Artificial Intelligence and Its Hidden Slaves (in French). We’re glad to share it here, as it features our colleague and DiPLab research associate Myriam Raymond. In the episode, Myriam Raymond speaks about who actually trains AI systems: the data workers behind tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. Paid per task, often invisible, these workers label images, correct outputs, and perform the micro-tasks that make large language models function. As she explains: identifying objects in images, creating small visual assets, validating model outputs. Essential work, systematically undercounted. Myriam draws on her recent fieldwork for DiPLab, including her study on AI data workers in Egypt (part of a growing body of investigations into this workforce in the Global South). The episode also features sociologist Juan Sebastian Carbonell, who contextualises the rise of data work within broader questions of offshoring, automation rhetoric, and labour restructuring.