Date: February 23, 2024 (Friday)
Speaker: Ms Karen Hao, Journalist
Chair: Dr Frank Hong, The University of Hong Kong
Abstract:
If European colonialism was characterized by the violent capture of land, extraction of resources, and exploitation of people for the economic enrichment of the conquering country, the AI industry is now using more insidious means to capture our behaviors, extract our data, and exploit our labor for enriching the wealthy and powerful at the great expense of the poor. This talk will look in-depth at just one dimension of this AI colonialism: the labor exploitation. The AI industry has long thrived off of a model of building billion-dollar products off of a vast economically precarious workforce. Now it is refining its playbook, seeking out workers in countries of crisis to drive down their labor costs even more.