Addressing labour exploitation in the data science pipeline: views of precarious US-based crowdworkers on adversarial and co-operative interventions
Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society
ISSN: 1477-996X
Article publication date: 26 May 2023
Issue publication date: 4 July 2023
Abstract
Purpose
Underlying much recent development in data science and artificial intelligence (AI) is a dependence on the labour of precarious crowdworkers via platforms such as Amazon Mechanical Turk. These platforms have been widely critiqued for their exploitative labour relations, and over recent years, there have been various efforts by academic researchers to develop interventions aimed at improving labour conditions. The aim of this paper is to explore US-based crowdworkers’ views on two proposed interventions: a browser plugin that detects automated quality control “Gold Question” (GQ) checks and a proposal for a crowdworker co-operative.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors interviewed 20 US-based crowdworkers and undertook a thematic analysis of collected data.
Findings
The findings indicate that US-based crowdworkers tend to have negative and mixed feelings about the GQ detector, but were more enthusiastic about the crowdworker co-operative.
Originality/value
Drawing on theories of precarious labour, this study suggests an explanation for the findings based on US-based workers’ objective and subjective experiences of precarity. The authors argue that for US-based crowdworkers “constructive” interventions such as a crowdworker co-operative have more potential to improve labour conditions.
Keywords
Citation
Bates, J., Gerakopoulou, E. and Checco, A. (2023), "Addressing labour exploitation in the data science pipeline: views of precarious US-based crowdworkers on adversarial and co-operative interventions", Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, Vol. 21 No. 3, pp. 342-357. https://doi.org/10.1108/JICES-08-2022-0069
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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