When Siri Listens: DiPLab’s Thomas Le Bonniec interviewed on Radio France Culture
France Culture’s show Les Pieds sur Terre has devoted a recent episode to what
has come to be known as the Siri scandal—the discovery that Apple’s voice
assistant recorded private conversations without users’ knowledge. The episode,
titled “Hey Siri, are you recording me?” [Dis Siri, est-ce que tu m’enregistres
?, in French], available for replay, features prominently the first-person
account of DiPLab’s Thomas Le Bonniec, who partook in this system as part of the
large workforce tasked with listening to and annotating Siri recordings.
A PhD candidate at the Institut Polytechnique de Paris, Le Bonniec relates his
experience which echoes that of hundreds of workers hired to sift through
thousands of audio snippets, often recorded unintentionally: medical
information, intimate details, sensitive data, and countless fragments of daily
life. This role of data worker is often precarious, outsourced, and hidden. This
occupation aligns with that of millions of AI trainers, click workers, and
content moderators whose labor quietly powers today’s artificial intelligence
systems. Their work sheds light on how AI systems rely on vast amounts of
human-powered tasks, often carried out under poor working conditions and with
limited recognition.
Le Bonniec’s testimony contributes to a growing body of evidence emphasizing
that behind every “automated” system stands a global labor force ensuring that
AI functions as intended.