Image by Hotpot.ai
By Jill Maschio, PhD
7 News Spotlight posted a documentary (found on Youtube.com) about the possibility of employees screening AI for images and content being exploited. We heard of similar stories of when Nike faced significant criticism and allegations regarding the exploitation of workers in its global supply chain. The alligation this time is against Appen. On its website, Appen describes the company as: “Appen has been providing high-quality datasets that power the world’s leading AI models for decades”. The website claims that their data is of high quality; yet, 7 News Spotlight documentary brings to question Appen’s morals in how they gather their images and data sets. If a worker is asked to screen images for certain criteria, but the individual is not an expert on the topic, how reliable can we expect the generation of content from AI to be in some cases? This is an issue 7 News Spotlight raises.
Let me know what you think of their documentary!