Ethical AI Starts with Data: Linking Curation, Workers’ Rights and Outputs

AI systems are only as ethical as the data used to train them, and that data is often the product of unseen human labor. From scraping copyrighted materials to the unfair treatment of data annotators, ethical concerns at the data curation stage directly shape AI outputs. Yet, the rights and dignity of data workers remain overlooked in conversations on AI governance. This webinar will bring together speakers, including those with lived experience as data curators, alongside voices from human rights and policy viewpoints. The discussion will highlight findings from two of our recent projects: one on ethical data sourcing practices in AI development, and another on labor concerns and the adequacy of existing legal protections for data workers. Together, we will explore:

• What ethical AI looks like at the data sourcing stage.
• How labor conditions and rights of data workers affect AI outputs.
• The human rights implications of data work in the digital economy.
• Policy and governance pathways to ensure fairness, accountability, and dignity for data workers. Join us to rethink AI governance from the ground up, by centering the rights of data workers and linking ethical data curation to trustworthy AI outputs.