In the Belly of AI / Feeding the Machine – Antonio Casilli in conversation with James Muldoon
A conversation with Antonio Casilli and James Muldoon on the hidden workforce that powers Big Tech's AI systems
Inside the belly of AI is a hidden workforce fueling the 21st century's largest case of human exploitation. From annotating data for apps and moderating content for social media, to training e-commerce algorithms and evaluating AI chatbot responses, workers are doing low-wage, low-security labour that often comes with a high cost to mental and emotional health.
Professor Antonio Casilli, one of the creators of the upcoming documentary In the Belly of AI, sits down with Dr James Muldoon (University of Essex), author of the new book Feeding the Machine: The Hidden Human Labour Powering AI, to consider the human and environmental costs of AI.
During the event, an exclusive preview of In the Belly of AI will first be presented to the audience. Then Professor Casilli and Dr Muldoon will have a conversation about how capabilities like ChatGPT herald the arrival of artificial general intelligence and how new algorithmic solutions, boasting trillions of parameters, permeate every aspect of social life from healthcare to policing. They will discuss their respective investigations into the invisible workforce performing unstable gigs to fuel these advancements in AI and highlight the struggle for workers' rights as Big Tech ushers in the era of AI.
Programme
17.30 – Welcome: Professor Antonio Casilli
17.35 – Viewing: Excerpt from In the Belly of AI
17.40 – In conversation: Professor Antonio Casilli and Dr. James Muldoon on In the Belly of AI and Feeding the Machine
18.25 – Closing remarks: Professor Antonio Casilli
Come along to gain insights into the hidden world that powers our everyday technology.
Dr James Muldoon
Dr James Muldoon is a Reader in Management at Essex Business School, Research Associate at the Oxford Internet Institute, and Head of Digital Research at Autonomy. His work explores how modern technologies can serve the common good, focusing on AI's hidden human labour and digital platforms' impact on society. Muldoon examines the transformation of digital labour across various sectors and investigates how concepts of freedom, power, and democracy evolve in the digital age. He is the author of Feeding the Machine: The Hidden Human Labour Powering AI (Canongate, 2024, with Callum Cant and Mark Graham) and Platform Socialism: How to Reclaim our Digital Future from Big Tech (Pluto Press, 2022) – both critically acclaimed works that analyse the societal implications of emerging technologies.
Professor Antonio Casilli
Antonio Casilli is Professor of Sociology at the Institut Polytechnique de Paris and a by-fellow at Churchill College, University of Cambridge. His main research foci are AI, digital platforms, and digital labour. He is the co-founder of the Digital Platform Labour (DiPLab) research initiative and the International Network on Digital Labour (INDL). His upcoming publication is Waiting for Robots: The Hired Hands of Automation (University of Chicago Press, 2025). To increase public access to the academic study of technology, he co-wrote two documentaries (Invisible Clickworkers, 2020 and In the Belly of AI, 2024, co-written with Julien Goetz and Henri Poulain – both works were produced by the French national public television broadcaster) and has been featured in several media outlets including BBC, Le Monde, Arte, Wired, and Times of India.