Feeding the Machine

The Hidden Human Labour Powering AI

By: James Muldoon, Mark Graham, Callum Cant

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Paperback | 10 April 2025

At a Glance

Paperback
288 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
19.8 x 12.9 x 2

Paperback

$32.75

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Feeding the Machine examines the latest global technology through the eyes of the people who produce it: this is the story of the army of underpaid and exploited workers powering artificial intelligence

Big Tech has sold us the illusion that artificial intelligence is a frictionless technology that will bring wealth and prosperity to humanity. But hidden beneath this smooth surface lies the grim reality of a precarious global workforce of millions that labour under often appalling conditions to make AI possible.

Feeding the Machine presents an urgent, riveting investigation of the intricate network of organisations that maintain this exploitative system, revealing the untold truth of AI. Based on hundreds of interviews and thousands of hours of fieldwork over more than a decade, this book shows us the lives of the workers often deliberately concealed from view and the systems of power that determine their future.

'Feeding the Machine may just be the most important book to be written in the current fever of AI publishing... What an important book' - STEPHEN FRY

Industry Reviews

'[A] call to arms to take control over our digital futures: build worker power, hold big tech accountable, and create a better understanding of how these systems work' - Financial Times
'Feeding the Machine may just be the most important book to be written in the current fever of AI publishing. It shines a light into the darkest corners of this 'revolution', revealing the enormous human cost behind the giant servers and grinding labour farms that exploit and abuse the human spirit in order to provide a technology that itself exploits and abuses the human spirit. I urge anyone who uses, harnesses or leverages AI to read this and consider. What an important book' - STEPHEN FRY
'I had no idea of the dark, tangled world of human exploitation and corporate greed that is fuelling the growth of AI. Here we meet people working impossible hours for pitiful wages - just so we can get our orders a couple of hours earlier, while some billionaire gets richer. If you think - as I once did - that the internet is a kind of 'free lunch' you need to read this extraordinary and essential book' - BRIAN ENO
'The darker side of the shiny AI era is the subject of Feeding the Machine . . . The authors delve into seven archetypal jobs in the AI supply chain' - Economist

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