February 3, 2023 - 10:00am
Approaches to environmental, social, and corporate governance — otherwise known as ESG — may be coming under increasing scrutiny, but it remains a boom industry. Ironically, the pursuit of socially conscious finance could lead to an alarming trend of so-called “data sweatshops” springing up across the globe to service the ESG industry itself. This should give pause for thought to those funnelling billions of pounds at the behest of so-called ethical investment.
The demand from companies to be scored for their ESG efforts has led to numerous data companies surfacing to provide ranking services, processing the vast amounts of data on supply chains and carbon footprints to produce companies’ ESG scores. The AI algorithms used by these services to calculate a sustainability rating rely on vast amounts of raw data, which in turn must be inputted manually through a labour-intensive process of “data labelling”. That is, labour which can mean that it ends up taking place in the same poor working conditions that ESG is supposedly addressing.
Data centres have appeared in less economically developed areas of the world, including parts of Africa, the Philippines and Indonesia, with data labellers working in insecure conditions on less than the minimum wage. Labellers add labels (i.e. amount of carbon emissions produced) in a code or language that the ESG score algorithm can recognise. This makes it possible for AI to identify a set of data, image or video. In the case of ESG, AI brings together large amounts of data with the intent on producing certain types of ESG scores which are displayed on funds being sold to investors, sometimes under the title of “Sustainability Characteristics” on the product information.
This information includes a cocktail of numbers, ranging from “carbon intensity” in tonnes to other metrics, such as one fund’s sustainability rating against others. These numbers indicate to the investor how ESG-friendly the company actually is, in the hope this will result in their receiving more funding, and deter support from less ESG-friendly organisations.
Other companies (mostly social media groups, who themselves are touted as “ESG” investments) might employ these sweatshops to do other labelling tasks as well, meaning data labellers could also be exposed to horrific content including bestiality and child sexual exploitation. They would be labelling images and videos for other clients, all the while being forced to work for as little as $1.32 per hour. Tanya Goodin, Tech Ethicist at the Royal Society of Arts, has characterised these places as not unlike “the disposable fashion industry and their sweatshops”.
The concept of ESG grew out of an increasingly morally conscious consumer movement, and arguably a political one, in the late 2000s to encourage investment into more socially conscientious companies. This push for a more “ethical capitalism” achieved early results, increasing the scrutiny on many companies who are using sweatshops and forced labour directly in the creation of their products or hidden deep in their supply chain. For example, Tony’s Chocoloney was forced to address the use of child labour in its supply chains, while tech firms have been less proactive in making changes in the face of pressure to do so.
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Subscribe‘Ethical capitalists’ are achieving carbon neutral status by offsetting their carbon emissions. Onto you. Via an AI obfuscated rigging of a system based on lies that people will just take as legit. One of the new ‘Gods’ that the people must worship, or else. We have been sold-out wholesale and it’s gonna get much worse.
The whole world is nothing but bovine excrement.
Carbon offsets merely move the emissions from the rich company to a poor country; no net improvement on a global scale. It’s a pure scam.
The whole world is nothing but bovine excrement.
Carbon offsets merely move the emissions from the rich company to a poor country; no net improvement on a global scale. It’s a pure scam.
‘Ethical capitalists’ are achieving carbon neutral status by offsetting their carbon emissions. Onto you. Via an AI obfuscated rigging of a system based on lies that people will just take as legit. One of the new ‘Gods’ that the people must worship, or else. We have been sold-out wholesale and it’s gonna get much worse.
21st Century managerialism!
Interesting that you remark on that. I wrote a paper a few years ago that made reference to Managerialism as the Silent Ideology – far more pervasive than F**ism and Communism, yet the least commented on. Instead of race or class warfare it’s totalitarian ideology is cost-effectiveness.
A worthy observation indeed!
A worthy observation indeed!
Interesting that you remark on that. I wrote a paper a few years ago that made reference to Managerialism as the Silent Ideology – far more pervasive than F**ism and Communism, yet the least commented on. Instead of race or class warfare it’s totalitarian ideology is cost-effectiveness.
21st Century managerialism!
The Royal College of Arts has a “tech ethicist”?
Funded by whom, to do what, that isn’t being done elsewhere?
The Royal College of Arts has a “tech ethicist”?
Funded by whom, to do what, that isn’t being done elsewhere?
This is all being set up for CBDC. Central Bank Digital Currency.
That is the thing, when all money is right from the Central Banks to Individual and Business wallets, and every penny in and out is known who, what, when, where, and why….. – You are like one of those bugs pinned to a board under glass….
Then you can have your Carbon Quota… haha ‘Eat The Bugs‘ because your meat allowance is used up. Thermostat above 64F? Well that energy costs more so no movie tomorrow…..and on and on, and energy lockdowns essentially – and like the 1400s – the monopolies set based on the carbon – Coke is +2 Carbon, Pepsi +3… maybe I’ll have a Coke…..
This sweatshop stuff is silly – it is like worrying that the guys making Stalin’s AK-47s are underpaid.
This is all being set up for CBDC. Central Bank Digital Currency.
That is the thing, when all money is right from the Central Banks to Individual and Business wallets, and every penny in and out is known who, what, when, where, and why….. – You are like one of those bugs pinned to a board under glass….
Then you can have your Carbon Quota… haha ‘Eat The Bugs‘ because your meat allowance is used up. Thermostat above 64F? Well that energy costs more so no movie tomorrow…..and on and on, and energy lockdowns essentially – and like the 1400s – the monopolies set based on the carbon – Coke is +2 Carbon, Pepsi +3… maybe I’ll have a Coke…..
This sweatshop stuff is silly – it is like worrying that the guys making Stalin’s AK-47s are underpaid.
Brilliant. Ethics reduced to code which can be analysed then monetised… Emissions trading was just the prototype, it turns out. What a world we’re making.
Brilliant. Ethics reduced to code which can be analysed then monetised… Emissions trading was just the prototype, it turns out. What a world we’re making.