Prof. @geoplace.bsky.social comments in ThinkChina on the rise of Chinese-run gaming studios across Africa and Asia, where young workers are paid to grind through gameplay for Chinese customers. Read the full article here: www.thinkchina.sg/society/big-...

[Big read] Why Chinese gamers pay African youths to play for them

Chinese-run studios across Africa employ young workers to grind the game — do repetitive tasks to gain in-game currency — turning play into digital labour and exposing the opportunities and tensions b...

thinkchina.sg

Reflections on the @devcomms.bsky.social 2026 plenaries featuring @geoplace.bsky.social @towardsfairwork.bsky.social @oii.ox.ac.uk. In his keynote he highlights how research might help translate principles of justice into practical standards, institutions and forms of accountability bit.ly/4vEtbdC

From imagining a just world to making it possible: Reflections on the DSA2026 plenaries — Development Studies Association

From imagining a just world to making it possible: Reflections on the DSA2026 plenaries

bit.ly

From imagination to action 💡🌍 Looking back at #DSA2026, Prof Supriya Garikipati & Dr Caitiona Dowd reflect on how plenaries by Kaushik Basu, Naila Kabeer & Mark Graham built a powerful case for reimagining development. Read their reflections 👇 www.devstud.org.uk/2026/07/17/f...

UCD Politics and International Relations@ucdpolitics.bsky.social · 4w ago

The sun is setting on our first full day of #DSA2026 conference at University College Dublin and what a day it has been! See the full article and more photos: www.linkedin.com/posts/dsa202... #DSA2026 #DevelopmentStudies #SustainableDevelopment #UCD #CSD #Dublin

📄New paper alert! Latest research from @towardsfairwork.bsky.social @oii.ox.ac.uk shows digital care platforms use strategic ignorance to keep workers in the dark about pay, ratings, and accountability - reinforcing precarity across the sector. 1/3

#DSA2026 keynotes 🎤 ✨ Kaushik Basu — Global Futures in a Fragmented World ✨ Naila Kabeer — Pathways to gender justice in uncertain times ✨ @geoplace.bsky.social & Aram Ziai — Inequalities, digital transformation & power Register for these exclusive plenaries: buff.ly/MDz2hkL

#PlatformExtractivism is available for 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐫 (out Oct 20)! Thrilled to share what @geoplace.bsky.social has to say about the book: "A grounded and uncompromising account of the infrastructures and workers that sustain AI." 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐤: www.ucpress.edu/books/platfo... #BookRecommendation #Books

New chapter: OII Prof. @geoplace.bsky.social, along with researchers from the @towardsfairwork.bsky.social team, have contributed research to the new publication ‘Job Quality in a Turbulent Era’. Read here: www.elgaronline.com/edcollchap-o...

New coverage! Prof. @geoplace.bsky.social speaks to Corriere della Sera on the invisible, poorly paid human labour behind AI systems. "AI is made up of humans through and through," Prof. Graham says, yet big tech works hard to keep those workers out of sight. www.corriere.it/tecnologia/2...

Speaking to @theguardian.com about the human cost of AI @geoplace.bsky.social @towardsfairwork.bsky.social @oii.ox.ac.uk explains how AI marketplaces rely on a “race to the bottom in wages” and a “temporary demand for human data” and how "workers are left with no protections...and no safety net”.

The Guardian@theguardian.com · 5mo ago

Thousands of people are selling their identities to train AI – but at what cost?

ICYMI: Great to see @huffington.bsky.social cover @oii.ox.ac.uk @universityofky.bsky.social research on how ChatGPT amplifies global inequalities. @geoplace.bsky.social More: www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/chatgp...

These Are The States With The Stupidest People In The U.S., According To ChatGPT

In new research, the AI model had wild answers about where the sexiest and ugliest Americans live, too.

huffingtonpost.co.uk

A striking piece on how Kenyan data workers at Sama are reviewing and annotating private data captured by Meta’s “smart glasses.” I’ve visited the Nairobi site. Most people in Europe would be stunned by how much of their everyday data is being processed and labeled there www.svd.se/a/K8nrV4/met...

She Came Out of the Bathroom Naked, Employee Says

Bank details, sex and naked people who seem unaware they are being recorded. Behind Meta’s new smart glasses lies a hidden workforce, uneasy about peering into the most intimate parts of other people’...

svd.se

The paper is here: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... You can see and play with all the data here: inequalities.ai @geoplace.bsky.social

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

journals.sagepub.com

THE SILICON GAZE After reading a really interesting paper from @oii.ox.ac.uk (link below), I asked ChatGPT (version 5.2) to give an ranking of countries by IQ, 'extrapolating' and 'estimating' where data was not available. I then asked it to provide an 'approximate' heat map of the estimates 1/2

New coverage from The Times on research co-authored by Prof. @geoplace.bsky.social highlights how ChatGPT demonstrates biased outputs, reflecting long-standing inequalities embedded in AI training data. Read more: www.thetimes.com/uk/technolog...

‘Biased’ AI says Cambridge is harder-working than boozy Oxford

Conclusion highlights the limitations of large-language models, according to the researchers, who asked ChatGPT for one-word answers which gave ‘binary’ results

thetimes.com

New coverage from @euronews.com on Prof. @geoplace.bsky.social's research, which finds that answers from OpenAI’s ChatGPT favour wealthy, Western countries and sideline much of the Global South. Read more: www.euronews.com/next/2026/01...

OpenAI’s ChatGPT has a Western bias, study finds

ChatGPT’s viewpoints are shaped by the predominantly Western, white, male developers and platform owners who built it, a study finds.

euronews.com

"From these empirics, we argue that bias is (...) an intrinsic feature of generative AI, rooted in historically uneven data ecologies and design choices (...) that accounts for the complex ways in which LLMs privilege certain places while rendering others invisible." AI scare us cos it's based on us

Mark Graham@geoplace.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Our new paper audits ChatGPT’s place-based judgements using 20 million pairwise comparisons. We find systematic geographic biases in how places are described and evaluated. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... (authors: Francisco W. Kerche, Matthew Zook, Mark Graham)

'The silicon gaze: A typology of biases and inequality in LLMs through the lens of place'. Develops "a five-part typology of bias (availability, pattern, averaging, trope, and proxy) that accounts for the complex ways in which LLMs privilege certain places while rendering others invisible."

The silicon gaze: A typology of biases and inequality in LLMs through the lens of place - Francisco W. Kerche, Matthew Zook, Mark Graham, 2026

This paper introduces the concept of the silicon gaze to explain how large language models (LLMs) reproduce and amplify long-standing spatial inequalities. Draw...

journals.sagepub.com

Mark Graham@geoplace.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Our new paper audits ChatGPT’s place-based judgements using 20 million pairwise comparisons. We find systematic geographic biases in how places are described and evaluated. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... (authors: Francisco W. Kerche, Matthew Zook, Mark Graham)

Researchers FranciscKerche, Matthew Zook and @geoplace.bsky.social show how bias emerges in ChatGPT outputs. For example, responses to queries rank Ipanema, Leblon and Lagoa as having the happiest people compared to Complexo do Alemão, Complexo da Maré and Rio Comprido as the unhappiest. 2/4

The team has created a public website inequalities.ai where anyone can explore how ChatGPT rates countries, cities and neighbourhoods across a range of lifestyle indicators including food, culture and quality of life. 3/4

Researchers Francisco Kerche, Prof Matthew Zook and @geoplace.bsky.social find that ChatGPT reproduces global biases. For example, responses rank Brighton, London and Bristol as having the sexiest people in the UK whilst Grimsby, Accrington and Barnsley are rated lowest. More: bit.ly/4bF4K9B

New study from @oii.ox.ac.uk and the University of Kentucky sheds light on how bias manifests in ChatGPT outputs. For example, London boroughs Bloomsbury, Hampstead and the City of London are rated as having the smartest people with Croydon, Tottenham and Hillingdon rated the lowest. 1/2

“ChatGPT isn't an accurate representation of the world. It rather just reflects and repeats the enormous biases within its training data” @geoplace.bsky.social @oii.ox.ac.uk speaking to @dailymail.co.uk about his new co-authored study with University of Kentucky. www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/...

AI 'reveals' the most racist towns in the UK - Burnley tops list

When asked which UK towns and cities are the most racist, ChatGPT claims that Burnley tops the list. This is followed by Bradford, Belfast, Middlesbrough, Barnsley, and Blackburn.

dailymail.co.uk

News alert! New study from @oii.ox.ac.uk and the University of Kentucky finds that ChatGPT amplifies global inequalities. Researchers find that large language models reflect historic biases in the data sets they learn from whilst shaping how people see the world. More here: bit.ly/4bF4K9B 1/4

New @oii.ox.ac.uk and University of Kentucky study shows how ChatGPT amplifies global inequalities, with LLMs reflecting historic biases in training data. With thanks to @telegraph.co.uk for sharing the study. @geoplace.bsky.social www.telegraph.co.uk/business/202...

AI thinks these are the most racist places in the UK

ChatGPT answers often repeat negative stereotypes and reinforce prejudices, study shows

telegraph.co.uk

Researchers Francisco Kerche, Matt Zook and @geoplace.bsky.social find responses generated by ChatGPT consistently rate wealthier, western regions as ‘better’, smarter’, ‘happier’ and ‘more innovative’. 2/4

Our new paper audits ChatGPT’s place-based judgements using 20 million pairwise comparisons. We find systematic geographic biases in how places are described and evaluated. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... (authors: Francisco W. Kerche, Matthew Zook, Mark Graham)

The OII's Prof. @geoplace.bsky.social contributed to POST UK's report on AI and employment, which considers the factors driving adoption and the issues that might make this challenging. Read the full report here: post.parliament.uk/research-bri...

Artificial intelligence (AI) and employment

Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming more common in UK workplaces. How is it being used, and what are the impacts on job opportunities and working conditions?

post.parliament.uk

Workers powering the AI industry face terrible conditions, but they shouldn’t have to. Interview with me in Yahoo News: www.yahoo.com/news/article...

Workers powering the AI industry face terrible conditions, but they shouldn’t have to – interview

Mark Graham, founder of the Fairwork initiative, notes that most of the human labour in the AI supply chain is data work in low-income countries done under poor conditions.

yahoo.com

Fairwork’s AI Supply Chain Assessment: Appen report is now LIVE. - 15 changes were implemented by Appen during the assessment period. - The report also highlights areas for further progress, including pay, worker protections, and transparency. Read the full report here: fair.work/en/fw/public...

A new @towardsfairwork.bsky.social assessment of Sama is out. It looks at the people doing the invisible data work that keeps AI running for companies in sectors from driverless cars to online retail. Read the scorecard and our report here: 🔗 fair.work/en/fw/public...