Human-powered content labeling, also referred to as 'data annotation,' is a growth industry as companies seek to harness data for AI training and other purposes.
Business
Standard : Over the past year, a team of as many as 260
contract workers in Hyderabad, India has ploughed through millions of
Facebook Inc photos, status updates and other content posted since
2014.
The
workers categorize items according to five "dimensions," as
Facebook
calls them.
These
include the subject of the post - is it food, for example, or a
selfie or an animal? What is the occasion - an everyday activity or
major life event? And what is the author's intention - to plan an
event, to inspire, to make a joke?
The
work is aimed at understanding how the types of things users post on
its services are changing, Facebook said. That can help the company
develop new features, potentially increasing usage and ad revenue.
Details
of the effort were provided by multiple employees at outsourcing firm
Wipro Ltd over several months. The workers spoke on condition of
anonymity due to fear of retaliation by the Indian firm. Facebook
later confirmed many details of the project. Wipro declined to
comment and referred all questions to Facebook.
The
Wipro work is among about 200 content labeling projects that Facebook
has at any time, employing thousands of people globally, company
officials told Reuters.
Many
projects are aimed at "training" the software that
determines what appears in users' news feeds and powers the
artificial intelligence underlying many other features.
The
labeling efforts have not previously been reported.
"It's
a core part of what you need," said Nipun Mathur, the director
of product management for AI at Facebook. "I don't see the need
going away."
The
content labeling program could raise new privacy
issues for Facebook, according to legal experts consulted by Reuters.
The company is facing regulatory investigations worldwide over an
unrelated set of alleged privacy abuses involving the sharing of user
data with business partners.
The
Wipro workers said they gain a window into lives as they view a
vacation photo or a post memorializing a deceased family member.
Facebook acknowledged that some posts, including screenshots and
those with comments, may include user names.
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