We are the foundation of AI, forming the backbone that supports every breakthrough in machine learning. We tag, segment, categorize, and annotate—turning unstructured data into meaningful insights. Every chatbot that understands you, every self-driving car that recognizes a stop sign, every search engine that predicts your query—all of it stands on the foundation we build. Yet, our contributions are often overlooked and the challenges we face are immense. The invisible hands shaping the intelligence of machines work tirelessly, often reviewing highly disturbing content for long hours, and struggle to gain respect and fair compensation. It’s time to acknowledge these difficulties and empower the human effort behind AI’s success. AI may be the future, but without data labelers, it has no spine.
