Graphic Short: 'Towards Responsible Data Practices for Machine Learning in India: Health & Agriculture’

Digital Futures Lab published a report on the state of data practices and the labour behind this data work, 'Towards Responsible Data Practices For Machine Learning in India: Health & Agriculture'.

To bring the humans behind these data practices to the fore, the report is accompanied by a graphic short by graphic designer and comic maker Kshiraja Krishnan that highlights the challenges faced by different, integral workers in the data life-cycles specific to healthcare and agriculture in India.

The ‘Health’ section of the graphic short spotlights the experiences of ASHA workers forced to submit video and photo data to AI companies, specialised doctors who need to parse through messy, un-contextualised data to train AI solutions and AI developers at these companies who hope to create solutions without infringing upon users’ digital rights.

The ‘Agriculture’ section of the graphic short focuses on farmers who are sidelined in private sector tech solutions that strive to solve their own problems, women and lower caste farmers whose specific contexts are often dismissed and policy researchers attempting to ask important questions about public-private partnerships in the space.