Humans in the Loop

AI is manual labor – a great deal of it. After all, the models we work with are underpinned by countless hours of manual effort: extremely repetitive tasks performed by exploited “clickworkers” in the so-called Global South. This work is carried out under appalling conditions. Humans in the Loop examines the validity of Big Tech’s grand promise that artificial intelligence saves us a vast amount of work. It asks whether this is, in fact, a massive undertaking that renders the complex work of skilled professionals invisible – or at least outsources it to regions of the world unseen by us.

Commissioned by the Staatstheater, video artist Luis Krawen wants to travel to Colombia where the work is performed, and Silicon Valley where it is refined. He wants to explore what AI actually means.