On Saturday, 17 October, the conference Hacker la Tech, organised by the French investigative media outlet Mediapart, took place in Paris. Bringing together professionals, researchers, writers, journalists, and activists, the event offered a space to discuss technology from a range of critical perspectives. One of the panels, introduced by Antonio Casilli and Dan Israel, a journalist at Mediapart, invited Caroline Wambui, trade unionist and co-founder of the Data Labelers Association, and Germán Salazar, a member of Corporación Ngen. The Data Labelers Association is a trade union founded by Kenyan data workers, advocating for the fair treatment and recognition of data labelers. They recently formally notified Teleperformance, along with Intérêt à Agir, The Oversight Lab Africa, and DiPLab, over its inaction in protecting workers’ integrity. Corporación Ngen is a Chilean collective founded by residents of Quilicura, a neighbourhood of Santiago where tech companies, notably Google, have settled their data centres because of the wetlands surrounding the city. These wetlands are currently threatened by data centres that use water to cool their servers. The discussion brought into focus two of the most important concerns surrounding the development of artificial intelligence: AI water consumption and environmental destruction, and the labour exploitation it produces. By bringing together perspectives from Latin America and Africa, the speakers highlighted the connections between struggles that are often perceived as separate and explored the “double cost of AI”. Whether these struggles concern the environmental consequences of data-centre infrastructure or the working conditions of those who produce the data, these movements confront different dimensions of the same technological model. The conversation revolved around the need to build collective forms of resistance, initially at the local level but, in the longer run, through collective action that can transcend geographical boundaries as AI issus are themeselves, globalized. Rather than treating environmental protection and workers’ rights as distinct causes, the conversation invited participants to consider how these struggles might converge in challenging the social and ecological costs of AI. Watch the video in french bellow