iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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The Distributed AI Research (DAIR) Institute @dairinstitute.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

NEW PROJECT LAUNCH! 🚀 DAIR's @dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social and @superrrnetwork.bsky.social are building a network to strengthen data-worker-led movements around the world. The website launches in mid-November. Sign up at dataworkersunited.org for updates!

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Data Workers’ Inquiry @dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

@milamiceli.bsky.social and Camilla will be working together with the amazing @jkloiber.bsky.social and Pauli from Superrr to support and strengthen these efforts. Make sure to sign up for the newsletter so you don’t miss anything! dataworkersunited.org

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Data Workers’ Inquiry @dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

We are proud to continue our collaboration with DWI co-researchers and to foster connections between movements and organizations, starting with data workers from Kenya, Germany, Venezuela, Argentina, the United States and Spain. And we aim to keep growing!

Bright red slide, which white mouse arrows on the top and the title Who we are. the text reads: We are a network of 17 current and former data workers and activists from Kenya, Nigeria, Venezuela, the United States, Germany and Spain. We plan to expand the network to include more people and organisations over the coming months.

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Data Workers’ Inquiry @dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Data workers are reclaiming their power to shape that future. This partnership between @dairinstitute.bsky.social and @superrrnetwork.bsky.social will build a network that strengthens solidarity across movements and borders, creating spaces for shered learning, strategy and action.

"A network to strengthen international solidarity" is written in large white letters against a red background.

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Data Workers’ Inquiry @dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

The inquiries available in our repository also articulate demands for change and give visibility to the growing resistance and organization taking shape. Our new project Data Workers Unite is a move from investigating to action!

Slide with bright red background. On the top screenshots from news articles about data workers' protest actions and pictures from a protest are seen. The bottom half is filled by text: All around the globe, data workers are organizing. Workers are setting up non-profit organizations, organizing strikes and developing new forms of collective action and mutual support.

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Data Workers’ Inquiry @dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Announcing! 📢 Data Workers United Data Workers’ Inquiry has always been more than only an academic project. The investigations led by data workers document the challenges, exploitation and precarity faced by data workers all over the world. But resistance and action are always a part of the story 🪡

Banner in bright red with Data Workers United! writen in bold black letters. To the right you see two fists raised in protest. The subtitle is A network to strenghthen international solidarity among data worker-led movements.

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SUPERRR Lab @superrrnetwork.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Never underestimate the power of workers when they unite to fight for justice. Over the next 24 months, we're joining forces with 17 current and former data workers and @dairinstitute.bsky.social to build a network that strengthens solidarity across movements and borders.

orange banner, two fists made up of cursors, headline saying "Data workers united: A network to strengthen international solidy among data worker-led movements"

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Data Workers’ Inquiry @dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

dataworkersunited.org

Data Workers United

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Data Workers’ Inquiry @dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

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Data Workers’ Inquiry @dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Data workers are reclaiming their power to shape that future. This partnership between @dairinstitute.bsky.social @superrrnetwork.bsky.social will build a network that strengthens solidarity across movements and borders, creating spaces for shered learning, strategy and action.

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Data Workers’ Inquiry @dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

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Arte es Ética @arteesetica.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Cuando el cuerpo humano se convierte en la materia prima para alimentar sistemas de IA. «Lo primero que me llamó la atención fue lo que se les pedía a estos trabajadores: No solo su tiempo. No solo su atención. Sino sus cuerpos, sus hogares, sus hijos» James Mojez Oyange, para Data Worker´s Inquiry

“Just Send us Pictures of Your feet”: Consent and Biometric Extraction in the AI Supply Chain
The boundary between labour and personal resource has disappeared: the human body becomes raw material.

by James Mojez Oyange

https://data-workers.org/mojez/

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Data Workers’ Inquiry @dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

What happens to consent in a workplace where refusing a request means losing work? Find out in the new report by James Mojez Oyange, one of the workers whose face, voice and documents were collected by the companies that employed him. data-workers.org/mojez/

data-workers.org

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The Distributed AI Research (DAIR) Institute @dairinstitute.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

"The community must be the author of its own world." @adiod.bsky.social envisions a future in which a Zimbabwean community rejects an AI surveillance program and designs a cattle-tracking system, drawing upon the relational data governance it has practiced for generations. urlvanish.com/0a108bae

dair-institute.org

Whose Categories? Whose AI?

The man from the Ministry of Local Government arrives on a Monday, chisi, the day villagers do not go to the fields.

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The Distributed AI Research (DAIR) Institute @dairinstitute.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

"I imagine myself as a small stone in a powerful gear mechanism, so that data workers are not completely run over without any resistance." From @dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social, a firsthand account of conditions and resistance from Apple's outsourced data workers. data-workers.org/luciana/

data-workers.org

“This is Capitalism”: Apple’s Hidden Data Workers at the Shadows of the AI Boom, by Luciana

The working conditions and resistance of Apple's outsourced data workers in Spain.

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Milagros Miceli @milamiceli.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Hidden data workers at Apple, training LLMs? In Europe? Of course! And you know what? The pattern is depressingly familiar: outsourcing, price discrimination, precarization, alienation. But don’t take it from me. Have a look at Luciana’s firsthand investigation 👇

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Data Workers’ Inquiry @dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

🚨 NEW INQUIRY ON APPLE’S HIDDEN DATA WORKERS! Luciana documents structural challenges and wage discrimination workers in Spain face, while reminding us that big tech companies do not hold all the cards - workers can and do resist! Read it here: data-workers.org/luciana/

data-workers.org

“This is Capitalism”: Apple’s Hidden Data Workers at the Shadows of the AI Boom, by Luciana

The working conditions and resistance of Apple's outsourced data workers in Spain.

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Arte es Ética @arteesetica.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

"The jury recognizes Data Workers’ Inquiry as a compelling example of how participatory methodologies can interrogate the socio-technical conditions underpinning AI" 👏 Muy merecido reconocimiento al trabajo que realizan @milamiceli.bsky.social y todo el equipazo de @dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social ✊

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Arte es Ética @arteesetica.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

"By rendering visible the labor that sustains digital systems and fostering technological literacy, the project repositions data workers as central agents in shaping the narratives, ethics, and futures of AI" ✊🔥 Don´t forget to follow @dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social data-workers.org

data-workers.org

Data Workers' Inquiry

A global, radically participatory research initiative, where data workers themselves become community researchers, identifying urgent issues, formulating their own questions, and choosing the formats ...

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Milagros Miceli @milamiceli.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

I am incredibly proud and honored by this recognition and look forward to seeing some of our work exhibited at the Ars Electronica Festival. I'll be there to receive the award! 📅 9–13 September 2026 📍 Linz, Austria

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The Distributed AI Research (DAIR) Institute @dairinstitute.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Congratulations to the Data Workers' Inquiry team. Incredibly well deserved 🎉🎉🎉

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Data Workers’ Inquiry @dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

🏆We got an Award of Distinction at Ars Electronica 2026!! Prix Ars Electronica is the world’s most prestigious awards at the intersection of art, technology, and society, and a huge recognition to our commitment to advancing worker-led, collective knowledge production ➡️ archive.aec.at/prix/319125/

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Milagros Miceli @milamiceli.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

Very proud of this collaboration with @utaw.tech, and delighted to see Fasica Berhane putting her exceptional reporting skills at the service of TikTok workers in London. Thanks @joxn.bsky.social for supporting the making of this report! ➡️ data-workers.org/fasica-utaw/

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Data Workers’ Inquiry @dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

🚨 NEW INQUIRY!!! Our own Fasica Berhane Gebrekidan partners up with @utaw.tech to reveal the exploitation of trust and safety workers and the displacement of human labor through inadequate IA systems, this time at TikTok in London. ➡️ data-workers.org/fasica-utaw/

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Three Scary Rogue Agents in a Trenchcoat @alexhanna.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

THIS WEDNESDAY: join @dairinstitute.bsky.social as we launch the Luddite Lab Resource Hub, a resource for workers fighting AI at work. We provide strategies for worker-led governance and oversight of this tech through case studies, primers, and a resource library. www.eventbrite.com/e/launching-...

eventbrite.com

Launching the Luddite Lab Resource Hub

Join DAIR and workers on the front line of resisting AI as we release the Luddite Lab Resource Hub, a new resource for fighting AI at work.

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Ingo Dachwitz @roofjoke.netzpolitik.org · 15/04/2026

Heute gab es das erste Fachgespräch zu Datenarbeit überhaupt im Bundestag. Dass das Thema endlich auf der politischen Agenda ist, ein riesiges Verdienst der beharrlichen Arbeit von Joan, Milagros und Julia. Sie haben zahlreiche Ideen, wie es besser gehen könnte. Hier lest ihr meine Zusammenfassung:

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Ghost in the Machine @ghostdoc2026.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

We are THRILLED to announce DAIR x GHOST fundraiser: if you haven't seen the film - or if you have - May 10 - 13 pay what you can to rent GHOST IN THE MACHINE on Kinema, all proceeds go to the freshest research in the space! Register and rent: notaidoc.com/dairxghost

Starlings fly across a blue sky, text on the image reads "May 10 - 13 Fundraiser DAIR x GHOST pay what you can to rent on Kinema, all rental proceeds during these dates go to the Distributed AI Research Institute" A button to RSVP to the side.

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Jorge Pereira @jorgepereiraart.eurosky.social · 15/04/2026

Interesantísimo fanzine sobre os danos psicolóxicos que sofren os moderadores das redes sociais de Meta e do desdén e incredulidade dos seus superiores, máis interesados polo negocio que oola saúde dos empregados. En castelán: data-workers.org/horacio/

data-workers.org

Trabajando para la Máquina by Horacio Espinosa

Una investigación auto-etnográfica sobre la trituradora psicológica que es la moderación de contenidos. Revelando lo que no debería seguir oculto.

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Claudine Bonneau @clo-bonneau.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

AI impersonation: workers are tasked with simulating machinic neutrality while processing human emotion.

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Milagros Miceli @milamiceli.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

Pocas veces me verán recomendar algo con tanto énfasis como este fanzine sobre quienes filtran lo peor de internet para que el resto no tengamos que verlo. Lectura obligatoria si realmente querés saber lo que es la moderación de contenido. Disponible también en español: data-workers.org/horacio/

data-workers.org

Trabajando para la Máquina by Horacio Espinosa

Una investigación auto-etnográfica sobre la trituradora psicológica que es la moderación de contenidos. Revelando lo que no debería seguir oculto.

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Arte es Ética @arteesetica.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

El fanzine «Trabajando para la Máquina: Fragmentos de vida y muerte de un moderador de contenido» expone las consecuencias psicológicas para los moderadores de contenido de META y de otras Big Tech. «Nada peor que mostrar humanidad en un lugar que se alimenta de cadáveres digitales»

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Data Workers’ Inquiry @dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

🚨NEW INQUIRY! Barcelona-based content moderator Horacio Espinosa translates his workplace ethnography into a heartbreaking yet powerful zine. If you use social media, you'll want to read and share this: data-workers.org/horacio-en/

Zine’s cover. An illustration showing two hands typing on a keyboard, the fingertips and some of the keys are stained with red blood. The title 'Trabajando para la Máquina - Fragments of life and death from a content moderator' is prominently displayed above.

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Milagros Miceli @milamiceli.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

This is a good opportunity to remind everyone that all pieces in the DWI can be used as classroom material. Our students deserve to know that chatbots in their favorite social media and messaging apps rely on precarized workers. ➡️ data-workers.org/france/

data-workers.org

Behind The Face of AI, by Clara and B.

This short comic details the experiences of data workers in France working for Scale AI as human chatbots. They explore what it is to be human and the consequences of acting like a machine.

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Eleonore @eleonore.bsky.social · 07/02/2026

People sharing with LLMs, but it's actually gig workers behind the scene.This shouldn't be legal! "Workers impersonating AIs have to work at impossible paces and follow ever-changing rules and restrictions that censor and standardize the personal and human style they were precisely hired for."

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Charles Logan @charleswlogan.bsky.social · 07/02/2026

Comics offer a powerful way to teach about the political economy of “AI” systems and the human labor upon which these technologies rely. #EduSky

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Data Workers’ Inquiry @dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

🚨NEW INQUIRY! - Behind the Face of AI🚨 In this short comic, two data workers describe their work impersonating an “AI” chatbot for a major social media platform. Sleepless nights, penalties for sounding “too human,” and emotional drain are just a few of the job hazards. ➡️ data-workers.org/france

Illustrated cover image titled “Behind the Face of AI,” showing a split face: one half is a tired human with a worried expression, the other half is a glowing robot face. The contrast suggests a human hidden behind an artificial intelligence persona, set against a blue comic-style background.

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Data Workers’ Inquiry @dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

🚨 NEW INQUIRY!! A Brazilian former TikTok moderator, pseudonymized as Lúcio, analyzes the systems designed to extract ever-growing productivity from content moderators and how they operate to harm workers. Download and read the report at data-workers.org/lucio/

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Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

"Many of us believed we were simultaneously impersonating chatbots and teaching them how to replace us."

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Data Workers’ Inquiry @dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

🚨NEW INQUIRY! Imagine sharing your private fantasies with what you believe is a bot that cannot judge or remember. Just that, on the other side, is a man in a one-room home in Nairobi, pretending to be an AI companion. That man is Michael, and this is his story: data-workers.org/michael/

data-workers.org

The Emotional Labor Behind AI Intimacy, by Michael Geoffrey Asia.

Imagine confiding your most private fantasies to what you believe is an unfeeling algorithm that cannot judge or remember. Now imagine that on the other side of that conversation is a man sitting in a...

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Milagros Miceli @milamiceli.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

Today, DWI publishes a powerful essay by @mgasia.bsky.social, who works impersonating an AI sex companion: data-workers.org/michael/ This piece offers a rare glimpse into the psychological and economic realities behind one of the fastest-growing sectors: AI-assisted intimacy.

Cover of the essay. It depicts a Black man, visibly tired and sad, holding a bleading heart that reads The Emotional Labor Behind AI Intimacy by Michael Geoffrey Asia.

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Daniel Brumund @danbru8.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

How the change we need happens: The amazing @dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social with @milamiceli.bsky.social carving out "a space where data workers could investigate their own exploitation, tell their stories in their own words, organize, and fight—on their own terms." data-workers.org/about/how-to...

data-workers.org

How We Made Data Workers' Inquiry, by Milagros Miceli

This piece traces how Data Workers‘ Inquiry came to life: not as a project with clear answers, but as a messy, stubborn attempt to put research in the hands of the people living the realities research...

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Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 26/11/2025

If you are interested in the methodology behind the Data Workers' Inquiry Project (@dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social), this is the paper for you. Research doesn't have to be exploitative.👇🏽

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Milagros Miceli @milamiceli.bsky.social · 25/11/2025

In sum, this work is not only a methodological account but a proposal for reorienting AI research toward worker-led knowledge rather than extraction. Read the full article here: ojs.aaai.org/index.php/AI...

ojs.aaai.org

Methodological Considerations for Centering Workers’ Epistemic Authority in AI Research | Proceedings of the AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society

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Milagros Miceli @milamiceli.bsky.social · 25/11/2025

Finally, WIRM fosters what Gramsci called "organic intellectuals" embedded in the material conditions and collective struggles of their class. It cultivates networks of solidarity and tools for analysis generated from within worker communities. See for instance: data-workers.org/DLA/

data-workers.org

Organizing Across Borders, by Joan Kinyua

The Data Labelers Association is developing mutual support structures and fighting for better working conditions. This inquiry recounts our path to founding it and acknowledges our ongoing partnership...

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Milagros Miceli @milamiceli.bsky.social · 25/11/2025

Second, we bring this approach into the AI domain. WIRM provides a way to illuminate the human labor underpinning AI systems while allowing workers to define the terms of that illumination. Our repository is proof of that: data-workers.org#Inquiries

data-workers.org

Data Workers' Inquiry - Data Workers' Inquiry

Data Workers' Inquiry

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Milagros Miceli @milamiceli.bsky.social · 25/11/2025

First, we systematize Workers’ Inquiry as a Research Methodology (WIRM). We focus on its political grounding, its architecture, and its operationalization, offering a step-by-step guide, examples, and a discussion of challenges and tensions.

Table summarizing WIRM's phases and steps, linked to their respective challenges and tensions.

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Milagros Miceli @milamiceli.bsky.social · 25/11/2025

📣New paper! Thrilled to share the methodological recipe for @dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social in this article co-authored with @adiod.bsky.social @krystalkauffman.bsky.social Camilla Salim Wagner, Laurenz Sachenbacher @alexhanna.bsky.social & @timnitgebru.bsky.social 👉 ojs.aaai.org/index.php/AI...

Proceedings of the Eighth AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society (AIES2025)

Methodological Considerations for Centering Workers’ Epistemic Authority in AIResearchMilagros Miceli1, 2, 3, Adio-Adet Dinika1, Krystal Kauffman1, Camilla Salim Wagner2, 3,Laurenz Sachenbacher2, 3, Alex Hanna1, Timnit Gebru11The Distributed AI Research Institute2Weizenbaum-Institute3Technische Universit ̈at Berlinmila@dair-institute.org, adio@dair-institute.org, krystal@dair-institute.org, camilla.salim.wagner@tu-berlin.de,l.sachenbacher@tu-berlin.de, alex@dair-institute.org, timnit@dair-institute.org

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