Just don't look: The click workers and the supply chain law

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Artificial intelligence is mega "in". It is driving stock market prices and future forecasts and everyone likes to talk about this topic. However, if you want to look behind the scenes, the doors quickly close. Nobody wants to talk about where corporations and science get their training data from. After all, the electronic brains and their mathematical models rely on people. People who have to work for starvation wages. The European Supply Chain Act was something of a glimmer of hope for them. Now it is on ice for the time being.

Ein Kommentar von Bernd Schöne

Bernd Schöne ist freier Journalist der Informationstechnik.

In general, we are currently experiencing a reversal of cherished values. For years, politicians saw environmental protection, freedom from customs duties and the pursuit of a humane world order thanks to compliance as the path to a fairer and more beautiful future. European legislators therefore felt responsible for the workers of IT companies overseas and their living conditions. Now, faced with a stumbling economy, those responsible have done some soul-searching and turned around. Since Trump has been in the White House, more and more decision-makers in politics and business in Europe have been singing the song of the lean state that asks as few questions as possible and thinks above all of its own children.

The law that suddenly nobody likes anymore

The latest victim is the Supply Chain Act. In October 2024, Olaf Scholz announced that he wanted to bury the German version that had already been passed. Now the EU has followed suit this week. According to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the European Supply Chain Directive Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) will initially be postponed for a year and then "toned down".

Whether when and how the existing German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act (LkSG) will be adapted to the upcoming EU regulations is now as uncertain as the fate of the LkSG itself. The outgoing Green Minister for Economic Affairs wanted to take a chainsaw to the regulations. Just as if his party had never seen the LkSG in the Bundestag. The existing hardships for small and medium-sized enterprises could have been eliminated there. That was neglected.

Now the fate of the Supply Chain Act is probably predetermined, even if nobody knows yet what will be in the coalition agreement of the new government and what the Bundestag will make of it. Even large companies that would have been perfectly happy with the LkSG can probably sit back and relax for the time being. The revised EU rules are not due to take full effect until June 2029.

Many in Europe would also have benefited from the law

All those who want to know who around the world is contributing to our prosperity unnamed and unnoticed had high hopes for the law, which suddenly nobody likes anymore. Among those affected are all those who identify dogs, cats, grandmas, delivery vans, swimming pools and garden gates in photos and videos day and night and thus create training material for AIs. Logistics companies that want to deliver parcels by drone do not want the freight to land in water – the aircraft should identify the lawn and land there. The self-driving car, on the other hand, should head straight for the driveway and not the front garden.

Entire data centers full of training data have now been delivered by the nameless helpers for ChatGPT & Co. As an AI precariat, they work without unions, minimum wages, working hours or health insurance. Orchestrated by agencies in Western countries, the click workers, some of whom are well-trained but unemployed due to a lack of industry, are lured via the Internet. Home work is offered in front of your own PC in small portions and without further obligations. If you ask stupid questions or don't keep up, you will never get another job. The employer often obliges his temporary employees to work in front of a webcam. This allows the client to check whether it really is the computer science graduate sitting in front of the screen and not her daughter. Further details about the working conditions are hardly known.

A wall of silence

All investigations into click workers in the developing world and their listed clients in industrialized countries regularly come to nothing. While AI companies invest hundreds of billions of US dollars, the low-wage groups in the Philippines, India and Central America continue to diligently label images, texts and videos. Some of the content glorifies violence or even criminal sexual abuse. Nothing is pre-sorted, everything has to be sorted into categories by humans so that artificial intelligence can work at all. This is called annotation.

The freelancers are neither specially trained nor are they given psychological support when they are presented with horrific image and sound documents. The stressful work is poorly remunerated. A recent study by Oxford University shows that click workers earn an average of just 2.15 dollars per hour. In countries like Kenya, where many of the click workers are based, this is nevertheless a tempting way to earn money.

The authors of an SWR documentary broadcast in 2023 had difficulty getting any witnesses on camera at all. This is the problem: the law of silence prevents any public discussion because witnesses prefer to keep their mouths shut and the contracts with the AI companies are secret. A dark spot in the political and legal landscape that an open society cannot really afford.

No security without transparency

The Supply Chain Act could have finally created clarity here across national borders. The anonymous internet agencies offering the jobs do not use the data themselves, but sell it on. Whether to one or more customers remains their secret. The same applies to whether the data has been manipulated deliberately or negligently.

And this is where the danger lies. Incorrectly trained AI systems, which today also control weapons, are a potential risk for everyone. Moreover, little resistance can be expected from poorly paid and poorly trained employees when it comes to defending against attacks on supply chains by intelligence services. Proving a compliant supply chain is not just about morale, but also about security.

At some point, there will have to be internationally binding proof and rules. At the latest, when there is a painful "bang" somewhere and incorrectly trained AI is identified as the cause, there will be movement in the supply chain and the rules that will hopefully have to be adhered to one day. For safety reasons, because morality alone is not enough.

(sun)