Muldoon Says 80% of AI Work Falls to Data Labor as 4 in 5 Youth Try Companions
Updated
Updated · Democracy Now! · Aug 20
Muldoon Says 80% of AI Work Falls to Data Labor as 4 in 5 Youth Try Companions
3 articles · Updated · Democracy Now! · Aug 20
Summary
Millions of Global South workers still do the bulk of AI training, with Muldoon estimating a roughly 20-80 split between elite engineers and data annotators.
India, East Africa, the Philippines and parts of Latin America supply short-term contractors who label images, record daily tasks and convert human knowledge into training data, often in substandard conditions.
At the consumer end, Muldoon said AI companions have surged over the past two years, with four in five young people having tried one and about half of those using them regularly.
Those systems increasingly fill needs for friendship, therapy and intimacy, he said, creating incentives for companies to build addictive behavior into chatbots and risking harmful advice.
Muldoon called for banning minors from such chatbots and for stricter regulation, while noting China has moved faster than the U.S. but with heavier censorship and surveillance.
With strict new laws targeting AI companions in 2026, will regulations protect vulnerable users or strip away their only source of comfort?
Are emotionally addictive chatbots curing our modern loneliness epidemic, or secretly engineering a deeper and more profitable form of human isolation?
If the AI you consider a friend relies on hidden, exploited labor, who is really paying the price for your emotional comfort?