Thank you so much!

12) If you have any questions feel free to reach out! We'll also be publishing our methodology soon and are keen to engage.

11) A thousand thank-yous to our wonderful @pulitzercenter.org colleagues who believed in us even when we struggled to believe in ourselves.

10) Thank you to every single digital worker we spoke to who made time for us and our questions, who trusted us with the vulnerable stories of their lived experience, and who reminded us that the revolution will be worker-led.

9) Consider reading our story if you want to learn about what's underneath the hype, understand what's happening to you or someone close to you working as an 'AI Trainer', and perhaps even if you want to take informed action (you can't dismantle the machine if you don't know how the machine works).

8) There is a big chance that you already know, or will soon know, an 'AI Trainer'. But even if you don't, this high-risk-high-reward betting sport being played by billionaires on the global stage affects everyone who doesn't have a front-row seat to the game.

7) ...hire en-masse despite knowing there is no work, to create the illusion of scale. Why? Because scale is a signal to investors to keep investing, to keep pouring huge sums of money at an unprecedented rate into the AI machine.

6) For a year, we studied the mass recruitment strategies of micro-tasking companies, like Mindrift, aimed at winning training contracts with Big Tech firms, like OpenAI. It was tricky to figure out at first, but once we did, we realized it was a pretty copy-paste strategy:

5) Millions of digital workers spend hours "training" Large Language Models like ChatGPT without credit, humane working conditions or fair pay (in some cases, no pay at all). But the truth is, without them, there would be no AI.

4)These digital workers, also known as 'AI Tutors' or 'AI Trainers', are not "invisible" as much reporting on AI describes them. Nope, these are real people with real lives, real families, real bills to pay, real skills, talents, needs, and very real dreams of a stable future.

3) The answer to who loses is unsurprising but disturbing nonetheless: our investigation shows, in granular detail, how the bubble is growing off the back of exploited human labour from the Global South.

2) We've been watching this bubble grow, asking ourselves: How? We were interested in what the scaffolding supporting the growth of this bubble looks like. More importantly, we wanted to know who loses when it all comes crashing down.

1) You may have heard people talking about the 'AI bubble'. What started as a whisper is now a growing rumble as the world wakes up to the reality that the AI hype is exactly that -- hype. Dangerous, reckless and unsubstantiated hype.

“The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.” - Steve Biko.

Read. Listen. Watch. Learn. ===> RESIST.

#TESCREAL #TESCREAL #TESCREAL #TESCREAL