DEWR highlights the ‘ghost work’ behind AI

The Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR) has pointed to the unseen labour force behind the ‘ghost work’ trend in its submission on the digital transformation of workplaces.  

DEWR’s submission to the House Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Training highlighted the invisible workforce operating behind many AI innovations as part of its report into the changing workplace landscape. 

“There is growing awareness of the human work that enables AI systems, ranging from labelling data used to train AI systems to stepping in and resolving issues with these systems,” the report stated.

“The term ‘ghost work’ has been used to describe the hidden labour that occurs in the training and deployment of AI systems.

"The most researched form of ‘ghost work’ is data labelling, where data being used to train machine learning models is tagged or reviewed by humans.

“For example, images of products might be tagged with labels to enable the AI system to better identify pictures of products.

“When AI systems fail it will usually be a human that steps in to complete the work. There are concerns that ‘ghost workers’ in the AI supply chain may experience low pay and poor working conditions.”

Back in April, the federal government opened a new inquiry to look into the accelerated use of automated decision-making and machine learning in the workplace.

The inquiry is seeking insights from across the Australian market into the benefits and risks of automated decision-making and machine learning in the work setting and best practices.

In its report, DEWR also stated the gig economy also known as ‘digital platform work’ or the ‘on-demand’ economy’ is a “small yet growing segment of an increasing number of sectors of the Australian labour market”.

“The gig economy has been enabled by the growing use of consumer digital devices, and advances in digital technologies, including AI.

“The gig economy includes platforms that connect workers, businesses and consumers to do almost any kind of work, from food delivery, rideshare services, personal care work, translation, web-based services, and beyond.”

However, the report said the gig economy also “raises some challenges for workers.”

“The role of some digital labour platforms in facilitating work has been questioned due to their contribution to work intensification, use of surveillance and collection and use of private information, allocation of work by algorithm and deactivation of workers’ accounts by automated decision-making.

“Increasingly, the technologies and approaches used in the gig economy are also being adopted in traditional workplaces,” the report found.

The report touched on many concerns around the digital advancements of the workplace but noted the full scope of “AI on the labour market may take years to be fully realised, in part due to the time necessary for businesses to adopt and take advantage of AI.

DEWR said key impacts of new technology on the labour market could potentially include displacement, reinstatement, augmentation and productivity

“While AI enables new forms of automation, there is currently no expert consensus on the potential for jobs to be automated, augmented or created by the adoption of AI.

“However, one point of consensus among experts is that AI will likely augment more jobs than it will automate and that there will be many jobs insulated from the impacts of AI.

“Generative AI such as ChatGPT, like previous waves of automation, will likely lead to some workers being displaced, some workers needing to adapt as their job is augmented by AI, and new jobs being created.”

Its findings said, “Unlike previous rounds of automation, which tended to focus on physical work, generative AI may also be felt more by white collar and knowledge workers.”

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