Beyond Mechanical Turk: The Work of Brazilians on Global AI Platforms

The aim of this chapter is to analyse the micro-work of Brazilians on global artificial intelligence platforms. In context of platformisation of labour, we show that artificial intelligence still requires a lot of human work, leading to global value chains and a global gig economy. In a digital economy, there are inequalities involving local workers and global platforms. At present, however, most research on micro-work focuses on the Global North. Latin America remains a blindspot. This research investigates the micro-work of Brazilians on two specific platforms, Appen and Lionbridge. This research reveal that micro-work is closely intertwined with the historical informality of labour in the country, a gig economy that existed prior to digital labor itself. There is no ‘digital labour universalism’. Rather, there is an AI colonialism reinforcing North–South inequalities from a platform labour perspective.