"The jury recognizes Data Workers’ Inquiry as a compelling example of how participatory methodologies can interrogate the socio-technical conditions underpinning AI" 👏 Muy merecido reconocimiento al trabajo que realizan @milamiceli.bsky.social y todo el equipazo de @dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social ✊

Data Workers’ Inquiry@dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social · last mo.

🏆We got an Award of Distinction at Ars Electronica 2026!! Prix Ars Electronica is the world’s most prestigious awards at the intersection of art, technology, and society, and a huge recognition to our commitment to advancing worker-led, collective knowledge production ➡️ archive.aec.at/prix/319125/

"By rendering visible the labor that sustains digital systems and fostering technological literacy, the project repositions data workers as central agents in shaping the narratives, ethics, and futures of AI" ✊🔥 Don´t forget to follow @dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social data-workers.org

Data Workers' Inquiry

A global, radically participatory research initiative, where data workers themselves become community researchers, identifying urgent issues, formulating their own questions, and choosing the formats ...

data-workers.org

I am incredibly proud and honored by this recognition and look forward to seeing some of our work exhibited at the Ars Electronica Festival. I'll be there to receive the award! 📅 9–13 September 2026 📍 Linz, Austria

Data Workers’ Inquiry@dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social · last mo.

🏆We got an Award of Distinction at Ars Electronica 2026!! Prix Ars Electronica is the world’s most prestigious awards at the intersection of art, technology, and society, and a huge recognition to our commitment to advancing worker-led, collective knowledge production ➡️ archive.aec.at/prix/319125/

Congratulations to the Data Workers' Inquiry team. Incredibly well deserved 🎉🎉🎉

Data Workers’ Inquiry@dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social · last mo.

🏆We got an Award of Distinction at Ars Electronica 2026!! Prix Ars Electronica is the world’s most prestigious awards at the intersection of art, technology, and society, and a huge recognition to our commitment to advancing worker-led, collective knowledge production ➡️ archive.aec.at/prix/319125/

🏆We got an Award of Distinction at Ars Electronica 2026!! Prix Ars Electronica is the world’s most prestigious awards at the intersection of art, technology, and society, and a huge recognition to our commitment to advancing worker-led, collective knowledge production ➡️ archive.aec.at/prix/319125/

Very proud of this collaboration with @utaw.tech, and delighted to see Fasica Berhane putting her exceptional reporting skills at the service of TikTok workers in London. Thanks @joxn.bsky.social for supporting the making of this report! ➡️ data-workers.org/fasica-utaw/

Data Workers’ Inquiry@dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social · 2mo ago

🚨 NEW INQUIRY!!! Our own Fasica Berhane Gebrekidan partners up with @utaw.tech to reveal the exploitation of trust and safety workers and the displacement of human labor through inadequate IA systems, this time at TikTok in London. ➡️ data-workers.org/fasica-utaw/

🚨 NEW INQUIRY!!! Our own Fasica Berhane Gebrekidan partners up with @utaw.tech to reveal the exploitation of trust and safety workers and the displacement of human labor through inadequate IA systems, this time at TikTok in London. ➡️ data-workers.org/fasica-utaw/

THIS WEDNESDAY: join @dairinstitute.bsky.social as we launch the Luddite Lab Resource Hub, a resource for workers fighting AI at work. We provide strategies for worker-led governance and oversight of this tech through case studies, primers, and a resource library. www.eventbrite.com/e/launching-...

Launching the Luddite Lab Resource Hub

Join DAIR and workers on the front line of resisting AI as we release the Luddite Lab Resource Hub, a new resource for fighting AI at work.

eventbrite.com

Heute gab es das erste Fachgespräch zu Datenarbeit überhaupt im Bundestag. Dass das Thema endlich auf der politischen Agenda ist, ein riesiges Verdienst der beharrlichen Arbeit von Joan, Milagros und Julia. Sie haben zahlreiche Ideen, wie es besser gehen könnte. Hier lest ihr meine Zusammenfassung:

netzpolitik.org@netzpolitik.org · 4mo ago

Im Bundestag wurde heute erstmals darüber gesprochen, wie die Bedingungen für Datenarbeiter:innen hinter KI verbessert werden können. Joan Kinyua von @datalabelers.bsky.social, Forscherin @milamiceli.bsky.social & @jkloiber.bsky.social von @superrrnetwork.bsky.social lieferten zahlreiche Vorschläge.

We are THRILLED to announce DAIR x GHOST fundraiser: if you haven't seen the film - or if you have - May 10 - 13 pay what you can to rent GHOST IN THE MACHINE on Kinema, all proceeds go to the freshest research in the space! Register and rent: notaidoc.com/dairxghost

Interesantísimo fanzine sobre os danos psicolóxicos que sofren os moderadores das redes sociais de Meta e do desdén e incredulidade dos seus superiores, máis interesados polo negocio que oola saúde dos empregados. En castelán: data-workers.org/horacio/

Data Workers’ Inquiry@dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social · 4mo ago

🚨NEW INQUIRY! Barcelona-based content moderator Horacio Espinosa translates his workplace ethnography into a heartbreaking yet powerful zine. If you use social media, you'll want to read and share this: data-workers.org/horacio-en/

AI impersonation: workers are tasked with simulating machinic neutrality while processing human emotion.

Data Workers’ Inquiry@dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social · 6mo ago

🚨NEW INQUIRY! - Behind the Face of AI🚨 In this short comic, two data workers describe their work impersonating an “AI” chatbot for a major social media platform. Sleepless nights, penalties for sounding “too human,” and emotional drain are just a few of the job hazards. ➡️ data-workers.org/france

Pocas veces me verán recomendar algo con tanto énfasis como este fanzine sobre quienes filtran lo peor de internet para que el resto no tengamos que verlo. Lectura obligatoria si realmente querés saber lo que es la moderación de contenido. Disponible también en español: data-workers.org/horacio/

Data Workers’ Inquiry@dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social · 4mo ago

🚨NEW INQUIRY! Barcelona-based content moderator Horacio Espinosa translates his workplace ethnography into a heartbreaking yet powerful zine. If you use social media, you'll want to read and share this: data-workers.org/horacio-en/

El fanzine «Trabajando para la Máquina: Fragmentos de vida y muerte de un moderador de contenido» expone las consecuencias psicológicas para los moderadores de contenido de META y de otras Big Tech. «Nada peor que mostrar humanidad en un lugar que se alimenta de cadáveres digitales»

Data Workers’ Inquiry@dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social · 4mo ago

🚨NEW INQUIRY! Barcelona-based content moderator Horacio Espinosa translates his workplace ethnography into a heartbreaking yet powerful zine. If you use social media, you'll want to read and share this: data-workers.org/horacio-en/

🚨NEW INQUIRY! Barcelona-based content moderator Horacio Espinosa translates his workplace ethnography into a heartbreaking yet powerful zine. If you use social media, you'll want to read and share this: data-workers.org/horacio-en/

This is a good opportunity to remind everyone that all pieces in the DWI can be used as classroom material. Our students deserve to know that chatbots in their favorite social media and messaging apps rely on precarized workers. ➡️ data-workers.org/france/

Behind The Face of AI, by Clara and B.

This short comic details the experiences of data workers in France working for Scale AI as human chatbots. They explore what it is to be human and the consequences of acting like a machine.

data-workers.org

Data Workers’ Inquiry@dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social · 6mo ago

🚨NEW INQUIRY! - Behind the Face of AI🚨 In this short comic, two data workers describe their work impersonating an “AI” chatbot for a major social media platform. Sleepless nights, penalties for sounding “too human,” and emotional drain are just a few of the job hazards. ➡️ data-workers.org/france

People sharing with LLMs, but it's actually gig workers behind the scene.This shouldn't be legal! "Workers impersonating AIs have to work at impossible paces and follow ever-changing rules and restrictions that censor and standardize the personal and human style they were precisely hired for."

Data Workers’ Inquiry@dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social · 6mo ago

🚨NEW INQUIRY! - Behind the Face of AI🚨 In this short comic, two data workers describe their work impersonating an “AI” chatbot for a major social media platform. Sleepless nights, penalties for sounding “too human,” and emotional drain are just a few of the job hazards. ➡️ data-workers.org/france

Comics offer a powerful way to teach about the political economy of “AI” systems and the human labor upon which these technologies rely. #EduSky

Data Workers’ Inquiry@dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social · 6mo ago

🚨NEW INQUIRY! - Behind the Face of AI🚨 In this short comic, two data workers describe their work impersonating an “AI” chatbot for a major social media platform. Sleepless nights, penalties for sounding “too human,” and emotional drain are just a few of the job hazards. ➡️ data-workers.org/france

🚨NEW INQUIRY! - Behind the Face of AI🚨 In this short comic, two data workers describe their work impersonating an “AI” chatbot for a major social media platform. Sleepless nights, penalties for sounding “too human,” and emotional drain are just a few of the job hazards. ➡️ data-workers.org/france

🚨 NEW INQUIRY!! A Brazilian former TikTok moderator, pseudonymized as Lúcio, analyzes the systems designed to extract ever-growing productivity from content moderators and how they operate to harm workers. Download and read the report at data-workers.org/lucio/

"Many of us believed we were simultaneously impersonating chatbots and teaching them how to replace us."

Data Workers’ Inquiry@dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social · 8mo ago

🚨NEW INQUIRY! Imagine sharing your private fantasies with what you believe is a bot that cannot judge or remember. Just that, on the other side, is a man in a one-room home in Nairobi, pretending to be an AI companion. That man is Michael, and this is his story: data-workers.org/michael/

🚨NEW INQUIRY! Imagine sharing your private fantasies with what you believe is a bot that cannot judge or remember. Just that, on the other side, is a man in a one-room home in Nairobi, pretending to be an AI companion. That man is Michael, and this is his story: data-workers.org/michael/

The Emotional Labor Behind AI Intimacy, by Michael Geoffrey Asia.

Imagine confiding your most private fantasies to what you believe is an unfeeling algorithm that cannot judge or remember. Now imagine that on the other side of that conversation is a man sitting in a...

data-workers.org

Today, DWI publishes a powerful essay by @mgasia.bsky.social, who works impersonating an AI sex companion: data-workers.org/michael/ This piece offers a rare glimpse into the psychological and economic realities behind one of the fastest-growing sectors: AI-assisted intimacy.

How the change we need happens: The amazing @dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social with @milamiceli.bsky.social carving out "a space where data workers could investigate their own exploitation, tell their stories in their own words, organize, and fight—on their own terms." data-workers.org/about/how-to...

How We Made Data Workers' Inquiry, by Milagros Miceli

This piece traces how Data Workers‘ Inquiry came to life: not as a project with clear answers, but as a messy, stubborn attempt to put research in the hands of the people living the realities research...

data-workers.org

If you are interested in the methodology behind the Data Workers' Inquiry Project (@dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social), this is the paper for you. Research doesn't have to be exploitative.👇🏽

Milagros Miceli@milamiceli.bsky.social · 8mo ago

📣New paper! Thrilled to share the methodological recipe for @dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social in this article co-authored with @adiod.bsky.social @krystalkauffman.bsky.social Camilla Salim Wagner, Laurenz Sachenbacher @alexhanna.bsky.social & @timnitgebru.bsky.social 👉 ojs.aaai.org/index.php/AI...

In sum, this work is not only a methodological account but a proposal for reorienting AI research toward worker-led knowledge rather than extraction. Read the full article here: ojs.aaai.org/index.php/AI...

Finally, WIRM fosters what Gramsci called "organic intellectuals" embedded in the material conditions and collective struggles of their class. It cultivates networks of solidarity and tools for analysis generated from within worker communities. See for instance: data-workers.org/DLA/

Organizing Across Borders, by Joan Kinyua

The Data Labelers Association is developing mutual support structures and fighting for better working conditions. This inquiry recounts our path to founding it and acknowledges our ongoing partnership...

data-workers.org

Second, we bring this approach into the AI domain. WIRM provides a way to illuminate the human labor underpinning AI systems while allowing workers to define the terms of that illumination. Our repository is proof of that: data-workers.org#Inquiries

Data Workers' Inquiry - Data Workers' Inquiry

Data Workers' Inquiry

data-workers.org

First, we systematize Workers’ Inquiry as a Research Methodology (WIRM). We focus on its political grounding, its architecture, and its operationalization, offering a step-by-step guide, examples, and a discussion of challenges and tensions.

📣New paper! Thrilled to share the methodological recipe for @dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social in this article co-authored with @adiod.bsky.social @krystalkauffman.bsky.social Camilla Salim Wagner, Laurenz Sachenbacher @alexhanna.bsky.social & @timnitgebru.bsky.social 👉 ojs.aaai.org/index.php/AI...