Read the full article here: External link to The Loop.
Artificial intelligence is frequently presented as autonomous, efficient and almost frictionless. In The invisible labour behind “intelligent” machines, the authors challenge this narrative by showing how AI systems depend on extensive human labour that remains largely hidden. Behind automated interfaces and claims of machine intelligence lies a global workforce performing repetitive and demanding tasks such as data labelling, content moderation, and training algorithms to recognise images, language and behaviour.
The article argues that describing AI as autonomous obscures the human cost embedded in its production and maintenance. By framing intelligence primarily through efficiency and energy use, technology discourse risks reducing human contribution to something expendable. This invisibility has real consequences for how labour is valued, regulated and protected within AI supply chains.
Rather than seeing AI as replacing human work, the article calls attention to how it reorganises and conceals it, raising urgent questions about responsibility, fairness and the future of work.
Read the full article here: External link to The Loop.
About the author: Mo Hamza & Soumi Banerjee