31.10. The Invisible Labor Behind AI - Workshop with Amir Payberah

Rose Willis & Kathryn Conrad / https://betterimagesofai.org / https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Date & Time: October 31, 9:00-12:15

Location: Soc & Kom, room 210 (Snellmanninkatu 12, University of Helsinki)

Registration by October 27: https://www.lyyti.in/REPAIR_Workshop_on_Invisible_Work_Beneath_AI_with_Amir_Payberah_9461 

Join us for a workshop that uncovers the invisible labor behind artificial intelligence from data annotation and system maintenance to the emotional and technical effort often hidden from view. The day continues with an afternoon seminar: Further Perspectives on Visible and Invisible Forms of Work, offering broader reflections on labor in the digital age. You are warmly invited to attend both events! The seminar is open to all, while the workshop requires registration.

Workshop description

This session examines the often-overlooked work that underpins artificial intelligence (AI), from annotating and cleaning data to the technical and emotional effort required to maintain AI systems. While essential, this labor is frequently overlooked or undervalued, and it reflects broader global inequalities as well as gendered and racialized divisions in digital work. The session is divided into two parts: (1) the first is a presentation that introduces these issues and situates invisible labor within wider debates on AI, and (2) the second is a hands-on group workshop where participants reconstruct the production pipeline of well-known datasets. By tracing who collects, annotates, and maintains the data, and under what conditions, the workshop draws attention to the people and practices that are usually hidden in accounts of AI.

Programme

09:00 Presentation by Associate Professor Amir Payberah (KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden)

10:00 Comments

10:15 Workshop

12:15 Lunch (self-funded)

13:15 Afternoon seminar

Amir H. Payberah is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden. He leads the WASP cluster on Legal, Ethical, and Societal Aspects of AI, and founded the Co-Liberative Computing research group. His research explores equity and justice in AI, especially in large language models, by exposing systemic inequalities in technical infrastructures and developing alternatives grounded in co-liberation, justice, and equity.