I had the pleasure to deliver a keynote speech at the WORK2025 conference in Turku, Finland.
My keynote (video 00:29-1:36:00), “Where does AI come from? Global circulation of data and human labor behind automation,” emphasized that AI systems are fundamentally built upon hidden human labor—specifically digital annotation, verification, transcription, moderation, and impersonation of data. This labor is fragmented, precarious, and carried out through digital platforms, predominantly by workers in the Global South who remain unrecognized in dominant AI discourses. My presentation starts with an excerpts from the documentary In the Belly of AI (co-written with Julien Goetz and directed by Henri Poulain), describing the working conditions of women annotating data and producing AI from Finnish prisons for 3 euros per day.
