In Madagascar, the small hands of AI are busy

It is 5.30 p.m. Antananarivo bouillon. Seated in a cafe in the center of the Malagasy capital, Daniel, a former annotator, says: “I was hired in 2017 by a subcontractor of French start-ups. At the time, I spent my days to spy on suspicious behavior on video surveillance extracts to cause flight detection software. ”

In a country that has lived for thirty years to the rhythm of subcontracting, the global development of artificial intelligence (AI) has given rise to the emergence of an entire sector: more than thirty companies based in Antananarivo are now offering their annotation services to start-ups and large French companies. The activity is practiced even in the privacy of Malagasy households, where self-employed work live with foreign companies or use micro-annotation platforms.

On sets that can bring together for some thousand workers, these “AI workers” qualify the data which then serves to cause artificial intelligence. Some classify texts according to the emotion that emerges from it, others check sound files. Most often, they work on images, describe what is happening on the screen or reference them according to scales defined by companies.

While a job crisis is raging in the capital, this new activity is an opportunity for many young people in the region. It can also be a trap: on the bridge forty hours a week, these essential workers receive between 300,000 and 500,000 Ariary (60 and 100 euros) per month, when these services are invoiced monthly between 600 and 1,500 euros by the companies that employ them …