The fourth article in our @hypestudies.bsky.social series at at @techpolicypress.bsky.social is out. Brilliant work by @marche.bsky.social and Kathy Cleary exposing how AI hype obfuscates the extractive practices behind training and labelling LLMs.

12. Thanks to @hypestudies.bsky.social for the opportunity to get really angry in public about a topic we care intensely about.

Remember, folks:

"The colonial project never ended -- it just got better PR."

#Agency #Justice #AI

11. Exploitation isn’t destiny. But naming it does help to restore agency, enabling communities to shape futures designed with them, not for them.

#Agency #Justice #AI

10. Hype is performed on social media platforms, repeated and amplified until it looks like proof.

#AI #SocialMedia #TechHype

9. That promise is dressed up as progress. It hides extraction while power and money gather at the top, leaving workers in precarity.

#TechColonialism #HiddenLabour

8. Speculation drives the system. Value isn’t about what workers deliver today, but about promises made for what might be delivered tomorrow.

#SpeculativeCapitalism #AIHype

7. This staging isn’t about the work itself. It’s about creating the appearance of endless supply to keep hype alive and speculation flowing.

#AIHype #Labour #GlobalSouth

6. Idle workers are staged as proof of “capacity.” This is labour hedging: human beings used as collateral to attract investors.

#GigEconomy #SpeculativeCapitalism

5. Recruitment drives promise abundance -- tens of thousands of jobs -- but often deliver little actual work.

#LabourHedging #Speculation

4. These workers are paid below‑subsistence wages, their expertise appropriated, and their labour treated as disposable.

#Exploitation #GigWork #GlobalSouth

3. Behind the hype are African gig workers. They train large language models, correcting errors and providing insight and oversight at every stage of development.

#DigitalLabour #GlobalSouth

2. That framing isn’t neutral. It makes exploitation look natural, necessary, normal and even aspirational.

#AfricanDigitalWorkers #DigitalColonialism

1. AI hype works by declaring inevitability. It tells us AI is “transformative” and “revolutionary,” disciplining belief before reality catches up.

#AI #TechOligarchy

How AI Hype Masks the Exploitation of African Workers AI is a consolidation of labor hierarchies, a plunder of African skills, and a commodification of African knowledge, write Marché Arends and Kathryn Cleary.

New article out in @techpolicypress.bsky.social: 'How AI Hype Masks the Exploitation of African Workers'

Read it here: tinyurl.com/4s2u68px

AI hype isn’t marketing, it’s a cover story disguising exploitation as "progress" and reframing colonial extraction as "innovation".

Let’s break it down 🧵

Here is the link again, just in case 😊

www.backabuddy.co.za/campaign/hel...

M🌻

Thank you for reading this far. I hope wherever in the world you are, you are safe and surrounded by kindness.

If you know me or anything about me, you know I’m stubborn AF. I will not let this injury steal my life from me; a life I loved and worked hard for.

If you’re able to donate, thank you so much. If you aren’t, I completely get it - the world is on fire, and we’re all just hanging on for dear life. If you're able to share this with your network, I thank you as well.

So, I’ve launched a fundraising campaign. It’s not to pay for the surgery itself. It’s to keep me afloat - rent, bills, medical appointments, and pain medication - while I continue to fight for it.

Here is the link: www.backabuddy.co.za/campaign/hel...

I’ve been patching things together for a while now, but the bills keep coming faster than I can keep track of. The reality is that I can't work properly until I heal.

Marché is lying in bed, underneath a bed tray that is propping up a laptop up so she can see the screen and continue to work.

Hi, I’m Marché - a freelance investigative journalist from South Africa. I’m injured, largely immobile, and fighting for a spinal surgery my medical aid refuses to pay for.

I feel like everyone is under some kind of bullshit spell that makes them believe in (and defend) AGI.

AGI ISN'T REAL AND CHASING IT IS CAUSING IMMEASURABLE HARM.

Please, I beg of you, stop waiting for a unicorn. And also, for those who haven't heard: Santa isn't real either. 🙄

Ugh, I'm tired 🤦‍♀️

gijn.org Where Plane Crash Survivors Sit, African Labor Fueling AI Hype, DOGE Guts US Health Agency, Syria’s Most Feared Prison

This week’s Top 10 Data Journalism column highlights, curated by Hanna Duggal for GIJN 🧵👇

Full story:

Thanks @gijn.org and Hannah Duggal for including our story in this week's Top 10 Data Journalism column!

Fuelling the AGI Hype: The Recruitment Playbook To Land Big Tech Contracts On the surface, the South African job market looks busy; scrolling through jobs on LinkedIn reveals hundreds, sometimes thousands, of job postings for “AI tutors” or “AI trainers” from micro-tasking.....

Thousands of workers promised digital jobs are being used as collateral in Big Tech’s race to build “super-intelligent AI.”

AI Fellows @marche.bsky.social and Kathryn Cleary reveal how workers are lured into jobs with no pay and no work.

Story for Africa Uncensored.
👉 bit.ly/4ncZ7lQ

“Our investigation reveals that despite thousands of job postings, these companies offer no promise of work, but instead leverage digital workers as collateral to win Big Tech contracts.“

Thank you so much!

Fuelling the AGI hype: The Recruitment Playbook to land Big Tech contracts - Africa Uncensored An investigation into the mass recruitment of "AI Tutors" and "AI Trainers" by micro-tasking companies reveals the deceptive and exploitative practices that these companies use, with false promises of...

"We employ the unemployable so be grateful you have a job." Great work by @marche.bsky.social on the hype behind "AI trainers"
africauncensored.online/blog/2025/08...

12) If you have any questions feel free to reach out! We'll also be publishing our methodology soon and are keen to engage.

11) A thousand thank-yous to our wonderful @pulitzercenter.org colleagues who believed in us even when we struggled to believe in ourselves.