Yale Scholar Uncovers Venezuela's Low-Pay Data Workforce Fueling Global AI
Julián Posada's upcoming book shows that amid COVID-19 and hyperinflation, Venezuelans survived by doing data-labeling jobs that paid as little as $0.50 an hour and were overseen by algorithmic managers.
Posada, a professor at Yale University, spent months documenting how entire Venezuelan neighborhoods turned to data work during the pandemic and economic collapse. The research, framed as "platform extractivism," highlights that workers receive only pennies per hour and are monitored by surveillance algorithms. Most laborers have no idea which companies or projects benefit from their output, perceiving the algorithm itself as their supervisor. The book aims to expose the hidden human cost behind artificial-intelligence systems.
Why it matters
It reveals how AI development depends on underpaid Venezuelan workers living through crisis.
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