Full Automation, Full Fantasy

On Content Moderators and the Illusion of AI.

This article was originally published in Rosa Mercedes,
the online journal of the Harun Farocki Institut.


‘The panic attacks started after Chloe watched a man die. She spent the past three and a half weeks in training, trying to harden herself against the daily onslaught of disturbing posts: the hate speech, the violent attacks, the graphic pornography. In a few more days, she will become a full-time Facebook content moderator, or what the company she works for, a professional services vendor named Cognizant, opaquely calls a “process executive.” …