Feeding the Machine: The Hidden Human Labor Powering A.I.

For readers of Naomi Klein and Nicole Perlroth, a myth-dissolving exposé of what “artificial intelligence” really means, and a resounding argument for an equitable future of AI.

Silicon Valley has sold us the illusion that artificial intelligence is a frictionless technology that will bring wealth and prosperity to humanity. But hidden beneath this smooth surface lies the grim reality of a precarious global workforce of millions laboring under often appalling conditions to make AI possible. This book presents an urgent, riveting investigation of the intricate network that maintains this exploitative system, revealing the untold truth of AI.

Based on hundreds of interviews and thousands of hours of fieldwork over more than a decade, Feeding the Machine describes the lives of the workers deliberately concealed from view, and the power structures that determine their future. It gives voice to the people whom AI exploits, from accomplished writers and artists to the armies of data annotators, content moderators and warehouse workers, revealing how their dangerous, low-paid labor is connected to longer histories of gendered, racialized, and colonial exploitation.

AI is an extraction machine that feeds off humanity’s collective effort and intelligence, churning through ever-larger datasets to power its algorithms. This book is a call to arms that details what we need to do to fight for a more just digital future.

About the Author

Mark Graham, Callum Cant, and James Muldoon are based together at the Oxford Internet Institute, Oxford University, where Dr. Graham is a Professor of Internet Geography and Director of Fairwork, a global digital labor rights project active in the United States and 37 other countries. He has written for the Atlantic and the Guardian. Dr. Cant is the author of Riding for Deliveroo, the first ethnographic book on online food delivery. Dr. Muldoon is Associate Professor of Management at the University of Essex.