Uber for Military Surveillance (with Niamh McIntyre), 2026.03.30

The people who make automated translation possible are often low-paid gig workers. Usually, they don't even know who they're really working for — and it might be the US military. Reporter Niamh McIntyre joins Alex and Emily to dissect how one data labeling company presents its work, based her investigation into the experiences of East African employees.

Niamh McIntyre is a senior reporter at The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) in London, covering AI, labor, and surveillance tech. She was 2023 AI Accountability Fellow at the Pulitzer Center, and prior to joining TBIJ, spent four years as a data journalist at The Guardian.

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References:

• Appen blog post on "Why AI Must be Ethical and Responsible"

Also referenced:

• "Gig workers in Africa have been helping the US military. They had no idea"
• DAIR's Data Workers' Inquiry

Fresh AI Hell:

• Marc Andreessen says "there is no inner self"
• Rest of World call for stories on labor and tech
• Detrans.AI wants you to talk to fake detransitioners
• Melania proposes catwalking robot as replacement for teachers
• Microsoft sidelines Mustafa Suleyman
• Andrej Karpathy cooked by LLM usage
• "Sorry AI, you can't call yourself a nurse"
• Volunteer fire department rejects $250,000 Google donation

Check out future streams on Twitch. Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.

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Emily

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Alex

• Bluesky: alexhanna.bsky.social
• Mastodon: dair-community.social/@alex
• Twitter: @alexhanna

Music by Toby Menon.
Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. 
Production by Ozzy Llinas Goodman.