We are excited to share an important milestone in our research: the publication of a new article just published in a special issue of the journal Globalizations by DiPLab co-founder Paola Tubaro, introducing and developing the concept of the “dual footprint”: the idea that every digital process leaves both a data work imprint and a material, environmental one. The impacts of artificial intelligence on the natural and social surroundings that supply resources for its production and use have been studied separately so far. Tubaro employs the “dual footprint” as a heuristic device to capture the commonalities and interdependencies between them. She uses two in-depth case studies – international flows of raw materials and of data work services between Argentina and the United States on the one hand, and between Madagascar, France and East Asia on the other. They portray the AI industry as a value chain that spans national boundaries and perpetuates inherited global inequalities. The countries that drive AI development, mostly in the Global North, generate a massive demand for inputs and trigger social costs that, through the value chain, largely fall on more peripheral actors. The arrangements in place distribute the costs and benefits of AI unequally, resulting in unsustainable practices and preventing the upward mobility of more disadvantaged countries. If you want to cite this article: > Tubaro, P. (2025). The dual footprint of artificial intelligence: > environmental and social impacts across the globe. Globalizations, 1–18. > https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2025.2589571 You can access the preprint version here: DualFootprint_12072025Download The dual footprint grasps how the environmental and social dimensions of AI production emanate from similar underlying socio-economic processes and geographical trajectories. This framework helps us better understand the true costs of digitalization and the global inequalities it reproduces. It also constitutes the foundation of SEED – Social and Environmental Effects of Data Connectivity, a new project that investigates how data extraction and material extraction are deeply interconnected. It stems from a collaboration with the Núcleo Milenio FAIR at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and compares data and material infrastructures between Europe and South America.

The journal New Technology, Work and Employment just published the article Uninvited Protagonists: The Networked Agency of Venezuelan Platform Data Workers, co-authored by DiPLab’s Paola Tubaro and Juana Torres-Cierpe. New-Technol-Work-Employ-2025-Cierpe-Uninvited-Protagonists-The-Networked-Agency-of-Venezuelan-Platform-Data-Workers Workers in Venezuela are powering AI production, often under tough conditions. Sanctions and a deep political-economic crisis have pushed them to work for platforms that pay in US dollars, albeit at low rates. They constitute a large reservoir for technology producers from rich countries. But they are not passive players. They build resilience, rework their environment, and sometimes engage in acts of resistance, with support from different segments of their personal networks. From strong local ties to loose online connections, these informal webs help them cope, adapt, and occasionally push back. Their diversified relationships comprise an unofficial and often hidden, albeit largely digitised relational infrastructure that sustains their work and shapes collective action. These findings invite to rethink agency as embedded in workers’ personal networks. To respond to adversities, one must liaise with equally affected peers, with family and friends who offer support, etc. Social ties ultimately determine who is enabled to respond, and who is not; whether any benefits and costs are shared, and with whom; whether any solution will be conflictual or peaceful. Social networks are not accessory but constitute the very channel through which Venezuelan data workers cope with hardship. Not all relationships play the same role, though. Venezuelans discover online data work through their strong ties with family, close friends, and neighbours. To convert their online earnings into local currency, they rely on their broader social networks of relatives and friends living abroad and indirect relationships with intermediaries. For managing their day-to-day activities, Venezuelans expand their social networks through online services like Facebook, WhatsApp, and Telegram, connecting with diverse and less-close peers within and outside the country. Different social ties affect the various stages of the data working experience. Overall, no Venezuelan could work alone – and the networked interactions that sustain each of them against hardship have made them massively present, as ‘uninvited protagonists,’ in international platforms. Their massive presence in the planetary data-tasking market is a supply rather than demand-driven phenomenon. This analysis also sheds light on the reasons why mobilisation is uncommon among platform data workers. Other studies noted diverging orientations of workers, unclear goals, lack of focus, and insufficient leadership. Another powerful reason hinges upon the predominance of weak ties in building up online group membership: indeed, distant acquaintances are insufficient to prompt people to action if their intrinsic motivations are low. The article is available in open access here.