What do you believe is the single most important factor driving up the cost of living in Nigeria?

In dusty factories, cramped internet cafes and makeshift home offices around the world, millions of people sit at computers tediously labeling data.

These workers are the lifeblood of the burgeoning artificial intelligence (AI) industry. Without them, products such as ChatGPT simply would not exist. That's because the data they label helps AI systems "learn."

But despite the vital contribution this workforce makes to an industry which is expected to be worth US$407 billion by 2027, the people who comprise it are largely invisible and frequently exploited. Earlier this year, nearly 100 data labelers and AI workers from Kenya who do work for companies like Facebook, Scale AI and OpenAI published an open letter to United States President Joe Biden in which they said, "Our working conditions amount to modern day slavery."

To ensure AI supply chains are ethical, industry and governments must urgently address this problem. But the key question is: how?

What is data labeling?

• Read More