Enough With “Human-AI Collaboration”

Describing our interaction with Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems as ‘collaboration’ is well-intentioned, but flawed. Not only is it misleading, but it also takes away the credit of AI ‘labour’ from the humans behind it, and erases and obscures an often exploitative arrangement between AI producers and consumers. The AI ‘collaboration’ metaphor is merely the latest episode in a long history of labour appropriation and credit reassignment that disenfranchises labourers in the Global South. I propose that viewing AI as a tool or an instrument, rather than a collaborator, is more accurate, and ultimately fairer.