RESUMO
Scientific research is growingly increasingly reliant on "microwork" or "crowdsourcing" provided by digital platforms to collect new data. Digital platforms connect clients and workers, charging a fee for an algorithmically managed workflow based on Terms of Service agreements. Although these platforms offer a way to make a living or complement other sources of income, microworkers lack fundamental labor rights and basic safe working conditions, especially in the Global South. We ask how researchers and research institutions address the ethical issues involved in considering microworkers as "human participants." We argue that current scientific research fails to treat microworkers in the same way as in-person human participants, producing de facto a double morality: one applied to people with rights acknowledged by states and international bodies (e.g., the Helsinki Declaration), the other to guest workers of digital autocracies who have almost no rights at all. We illustrate our argument by drawing on 57 interviews conducted with microworkers in Spanish-speaking countries.
Assuntos
Crowdsourcing , Ética em Pesquisa , Humanos , Declaração de HelsinkiRESUMO
O objetivo deste estudo é analisar as condições de trabalho e os seus impactos na saúde dos trabalhadores no mercado de microtarefas de treinamento de dados para a produção de Inteligência Artificial (IA), em especial no que diz respeito a suas relações com a ideologia gerencialista. Os dados são provenientes de uma netnografia realizada entre os anos de 2020 e 2021, de análises dos websites das plataformas e de entrevistas realizadas com 15 trabalhadores. A partir da análise de quatro instâncias mediadoras (econômica, política, ideológica e psicológica), argumentamos que a ideologia gerencialista, consubstanciada a ideologia californiana, se caracteriza como um operador central na gestão do trabalho, que tem por finalidade garantir a adesão dos trabalhadores às plataformas e ocultar os conflitos do trabalho, direcionando-os para o nível individual e produzindo um cenário de individualização do sofrimento.
The objective of this study is to analyze working conditions and their impacts on worker's health in the Artificial Intelligence (AI) data annotation microtask market, especially to highlight their relationship with managerial ideology. The data comes from a netnography carried out between the years 2020 and 2021, from analysis on the platform's websites, and from interviews with 15 workers. Drawing from the analysis of four different mediation systems (economic, political, ideological, and psychological), we argue that the managerial ideology, overlaid with the Californian ideology, is characterized as a central element in the management of labor, which aims to guarantee the adherence of workers to platforms and hide the labor conflicts, directing them to the individual level and producing a scenario of individualization of suffering.
El objetivo de esta investigación es analizar las condiciones de trabajo y sus impactos en la salud de los tra-bajadores en el mercado de microtareas de anotación de datos para la producción de Inteligencia Artificial (IA), en particular en lo que concierne a su relación con la ideología managerial. Los datos provienen de una netnografía realizada entre los años 2020 y 2021, de análisis en los sitios web de las plataformas y de entrevistas con 15 trabajadores. A partir del análisis de cuatro instancias mediadoras (económica, política, ideológica y psicológica), argumentamos que la ideología gerencial, superpuesta en la ideología californi-ana, se caracteriza como un elemento central en la gestión del trabajo, que pretende garantizar la adhesión de los trabajadores a las plataformas y ocultar los conflictos del trabajo, dirigiéndolos al plano individual y produciendo un escenario de individualización del sufrimiento.
