On 16-17 May 2025, DiPLab’s Paola Tubaro was invited by the French Institute in Argentina to participate in its landmark event “Night of Ideas.” At world-famous Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, she spoke in panels that provocatively questioned the “new voluntary servitude” of platform work and asked whether “in AI we trust?” On 20 May, she gave a talk on “The Future of Work and AI” at the prestigious University of Buenos Aires. She presented some results of her research on digital labor and its role in AI production, developed in the framework of the DiPLab research program. No Caption No Caption No Caption No Caption

On May 1st, 2025—Labor Day—France24 hosted a timely televised debate on the fears and opportunities that artificial intelligence presents for workers. Among the guests was Paola Tubaro, co-founder of DiPLab and a researcher at CNRS, who offered a sharp perspective on the discussion. The conversation revolved around a deep contradiction. On one hand, a widespread fear that AI will replace human labor, destabilize job markets, and deepen inequality. Certain jobs—especially those involving routine or precarious tasks—seem to be far more vulnerable than others. On the other hand, AI is also seen as a potential opportunity: the beginning of a “new industrial revolution”, capable of transforming how we work, influencing education, creating new room for social dialogue between employers, governments, and workers. Click here for video Yet Dr. Tubaro urged viewers to go further than surface-level concerns, by shifting the focus toward a more often overlooked question: how AI is produced, and by whom. Behind every “intelligent” machine lies a hidden human infrastructure—thousands of workers labeling data, training algorithms, and moderating online content. These workers, often located in the Global South, remain largely invisible, underpaid, and unprotected. For Tubaro, these workers are among those most overlooked in the AI-driven economy, often bearing the hidden costs of innovation. > “The struggles and union efforts of data workers in the Global South are > especially powerful because they’re not just fighting for better > conditions—they’re putting forward a vision of what AI should be, and what > kind of future it could help us build.” (Paola Tubaro, France24, 1 mai 2025) However, their story does not end there. These same workers are now at the forefront of organizing and resistance, pushing back against the terms of their exploitation and offering alternative visions of an AI-driven world. They are contributing a powerful voice to the global conversation about technology and fairness.

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.