Feeding the Machine: The Hidden Human Labour Powering AI

Muldoon, James

ISBN 10: 1837261849 / ISBN 13: 9781837261840

Published by Canongate Books, 2025

About this Item

Most items will be dispatched the same or the next working day. An apparently unread copy in perfect condition. Dust cover is intact with no nicks or tears. Spine has no signs of creasing. Pages are clean and not marred by notes or folds of any kind.

Seller Inventory # wbs9132345921

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Feeding the Machine: The Hidden Human Labour Powering AI
• Publisher: Canongate Books
• Publication Date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1837261849
• ISBN 13: 9781837261840
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: Like New
• Weight: 240 grams

About this title

Synopsis

Big Tech has sold us the illusion that artificial intelligence is a frictionless technology that will bring wealth and prosperity to humanity. But hidden beneath this smooth surface lies the grim reality of a precarious global workforce of millions that labour under often appalling conditions to make AI possible.

Feeding the Machine presents an urgent, riveting investigation of the intricate network of organisations that maintain this exploitative system, revealing the untold truth of AI. Based on hundreds of interviews and thousands of hours of fieldwork over more than a decade, this book shows us the lives of the workers often deliberately concealed from view and the systems of power that determine their future.

About the Authors

James Muldoon is a Reader in Management at the University of Essex, a Research Associate at the University of Oxford and the Head of Digital Research at the Autonomy think tank. His research examines how modern technologies such as artificial intelligence and digital platforms can create public value and serve the common good.

Mark Graham is Director of Fairwork and Professor at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford. As an internet geographer, Mark studied the growth of a global digital labour market since the first arrival of submarine internet cables in Kenya in 2009. He has also written for publications including Wired and the Guardian.

Callum Cant is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Essex Business School, where his research focuses on work, technology, and the crises of the 21st century. He has written for publications including the New Internationalist and Vice News. He edits Notes from Below, a journal of worker writing.