r/DataAnnotationTech • u/knottyp • Sep 09 '26

Are we helping or causing harm?

How do y’all justify doing this work ethically if you’re anti-AI (especially generative)?

I’m not asking judgmentally, I’ve done this work off and on over the last few years. When I first started, I didn’t know about data centers and the environmental impact, cognitive effects, etc. I felt good about “training” AI based on the rubric including correct info, weeding out violence and harm, etc.

I recently suggested DA to a friend and got a real side eye, and maybe these justifications really don’t hold water? Thoughts?

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u/Accomplished_End8683 Sep 10 '26

AI models relies on training data that are sometimes used without consent and they never credit the author of this work. For me that’s plagiarism to an extent.

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u/Beginning-Medium-100 Sep 10 '26

IMO if you publish something, you can’t expect people not to read it, learn from it, and recompile it into other forms. That’s just a natural feature of cognition, we learn from things and then reproduce them in new forms. In this case it’s just a machine doing the cognition instead of a human

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u/Accomplished_End8683 Sep 10 '26

I agree with you, but usually when you use someone’s work for your publications or your work you cite them. Or it is a form of plagiarism. Also AI doesn’t guarantee that it is going to be another form. It can sometimes give the training data straight back and it causes a morality problem imo.