The BasePeople

Cunyan Ma

undergraduate, Brown University

Titles as the sources gave them. In 1 entry, with 2 checked quotations.

What they said

Newest first. Each quotation was found word for word in the source.

“So you have folks around the world who have to read paragraph after paragraph of AI-produced child pornography, bestiality, violent content or whatever else, just to try to train AI to be safe.”
Brown student maps the hidden global labor powering AIBrown University, October 26, 2026. Speaking as: Other. Ma describes what outsourced data workers in the Global South are asked to review when labeling content to train AI.
“People don't even know about their fellow co-workers. That makes unionizing or anything like that just kind of impossible.”
Brown student maps the hidden global labor powering AIBrown University, October 26, 2026. Speaking as: Other. Ma on why the distributed nature of data work blocks organizing, and why a future version of the map might help workers find each other.

In the Base

Every entry they appear in.

  1. NewsBrown UniversitySpeaks

    Brown student maps the hidden global labor powering AI

    Brown University reports on an interactive map by undergraduate Cunyan Ma linking 13 data labeling companies, 141 of their corporate customers and 31 countries with data worker sites. Ma frames the outsourced, low-paid labor as "AI colonialism"; the map is described as illustrative, not comprehensive.