AI’s dirty secret: the human labor behind Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence is often marketed as seamless, futuristic technology — machines that “think” on their own. But behind the glossy image lies a workforce of thousands of underpaid humans who make these systems function, often under grueling and poorly regulated conditions.

While AI is described as autonomous, the reality is that large language models and image generators require vast amounts of human input to operate effectively. Millions of data points — from identifying offensive content to labeling everyday objects in photos — are sorted, tagged, and filtered by human workers. Without this invisible labor, AI would collapse under its own mistakes. The troubling part is who these workers are, and how little they earn. Many are based in developing countries such as Kenya, the Philippines, and Venezuela, where companies outsource the work to keep costs low. Reports show some earn as little as $2 an hour, tasked with reviewing the darkest corners of the internet: graphic violence, child exploitation, and hate speech.

Psychologists warn that constant exposure to such material can cause serious mental health damage. Yet most of these workers receive little to no psychological support, and many sign strict nondisclosure agreements preventing them from speaking publicly.

Then there’s the ethical problem of deception. Consumers believe they are interacting with “intelligent” machines, but in reality, humans are constantly in the loop — correcting, cleaning, and patching the flaws of AI systems. The more the technology is celebrated as independent, the less credit and recognition is given to the humans making it possible.

Even major corporations have faced scrutiny. In 2023, a tech giant admitted to relying on outsourced moderators to “train” its AI on harmful content, while another company faced backlash for paying workers pennies per task to annotate medical data. The exploitation of cheap human labor is an industry-wide practice, critics argue, quietly fueling the AI boom.

As AI adoption accelerates, the hidden army behind it is growing. Advocates say it’s time for greater transparency and protections for the people doing this invisible work. Without them, the “brains” of AI would be little more than confused algorithms, stumbling through unfiltered data.

The irony is sharp: artificial intelligence may be hailed as the future, but right now, it still runs on the backs of humans — many of them invisible, unheard, and underpaid.