Category Archives: Uncategorized

What About the Data Labelers Themselves?

Earlier this month I discussed a class action lawsuit, originated in the United States, from people who believe their privacy is being violated by the use of Kenyan data labelers to view their video output.

And the data labelers themselves are not happy, according to a 404 Media article “AI is African Intelligence.”

Before I get to the Kenyans, let’s talk about the reality of AI. No, AI output is not 100% generated by computers alone. There is often human review.

In some cases human review is understandable. There was a recent brouhaha when it was publicly highlighted that when a Waymo vehicle runs into a problematic situation, Waymo calls upon a human reviewer to intervene. People’s anger about this is pointless: would they prefer that Waymo NOT call upon a human reviewer, and just let the car do whatever?

Back to Kenya and the Data Labelers Association (DLA) reports of what data labelers actually do.

“Every day, Michael Geoffrey Asia spent eight consecutive hours at his laptop in Kenya staring at porn, annotating what was happening in every frame for an AI data labeling company. When he was done with his shift, he started his second job as the human labor behind AI sex bots, sexting with real lonely people he suspected were in the United States. His boss was an algorithm that told him to flit in and out of different personas.”

I’ve previously seen reports about people in the U.S. reviewing shocking material for social media companies, but it’s a heck of a lot cheaper to outsource the work abroad.

Unless the U.S. Government insists on bringing data labeling work to the United States, in the same way that it wants to bring call center jobs back here.

I do offer one caution: there is a lot of data labeling work that is NOT pornographic. In the identity verification industry, data labelers review real and fake faces, real and fake documents, and the like to train AI models. Such work does not have the emotional stress that you get from watching certain videos.

But it’s still hard work.

Please Tell Us Why You Had To Hide Away For So Long

Remember when I originally shared this video?

Level 4 Detail.

Focusing on some things means not focusing on others.

With reason.

In the first 1 1/2 months of 2026, the Bredemarket blog received traffic from Bluesky.

1 view.

So I haven’t posted on Bluesky in a month.

Until today.

At https://bsky.app/profile/bredemarket.bsky.social

Let’s see if I can double my Bluesky to WordPress traffic.

A boy can dream.

Gemini Doesn’t Know Me

Vanity searches have been replaced by vanity LLM questions. And when I asked Google Gemini about myself, I found all sorts of errors.

A sampling:

He holds a Bachelor’s degree (and has mentioned graduate studies in public administration in professional contexts).

Having never studied public administration, I pressed Gemini on the issue.

Master of Business Administration (MBA): He earned his MBA from California State University, San Bernardino.

I pressed on that: I actually attended Cal State Fullerton. But that was nothing compared to this:

Undergraduate: He holds a Bachelor of Arts from Concordia University Chicago (formerly Concordia Teachers College).

That is actually my wife. I went to Reed College, which is NOT affiliated with the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.

Not in River Forest.

Whether you use Google Gemini, Wikipedia, or the Bredemarket blog, ALWAYS check your sources.

On Newsletters

I’ve written newsletters for years, both as an employee (the third one here) and as a Bredemarket consultant. Some went to fewer than a dozen people, some to hundreds, and some to thousands.

Unlike a blog post, case study, or white paper, a newsletter does not provide a single focus. While the articles may be related, each stands on its own.

Sometimes literally. Individual newsletter articles may be repurposed as stand-alone blog and social media posts, extending their reach beyond the newsletter’s subscribers.

A powerful and flexible communication method.

Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS)

Today’s acronym is CRVS, and its importance in Africa.

But let’s define the acronym first: Civil Registration and Vital Statistics. From the World Health Organization:

“In most countries, a civil registration system is used to record statistics on vital events, such as births, deaths, marriages, divorces and fetal deaths. This government administrative system creates a permanent record of each event.”

Note the phrase “in most countries.” And even in some countries with CRVS systems, they may not be (in WHO’s words) “well-functioning.”

Which is why this year’s ID4Africa Annual Meeting (May 12-15) will spend significant time on CRVS as it pertains to legal identity. Here’s the first session in “Track 4,” moderated by UNICEF and the World Bank:

“This session launches the examination of CRVS–ID integration as both a critical governance reform and a strategic opportunity for African countries at all stages of identity system maturity. While civil registration and national ID systems are foundational to legal identity and effective service delivery, they have too often evolved in silos—resulting in fragmentation, inefficiencies, exclusion, and lost value from public investments. Drawing on country experiences from across the continent, the session explores why coherent CRVS–ID integration is essential, what integration pathways are available, and how institutional, legal, and technical choices shape outcomes. Part I features countries that have already undertaken top-down integration reforms, sharing lessons learned and benefits realized. Part II turns to countries still assessing policy options, examining the risks of continued fragmentation, the opportunities offered by integration, and the practical trade-offs involved in moving forward.”

Several additional sessions follow.

Identity has been an issue for years, as I described in a 2021 post about the European Union Digital COVID Certificate (EUDCC). Yeah, way back then.

“Assume for the moment that you have received an EU-authorized vaccine. This is only part of the battle, because the act of vaccination has to be tied to you as a person.

“And [Dr. Joseph] Atick notes one complicating factor in making that link:

“‘One of the biggest barriers to setting up these systems—and one that could greatly complicate digital health certificates – involves traceability, which for an official digital ID means documenting one’s birth event.

“‘In Africa, not everyone has a birth certificate, and many struggle to trace their identity to the birth event.’

“If you cannot prove to the satisfaction of the European Union (or whoever) that you were the actual person who received a vaccine, then you may face barriers to entering Europe (or wherever).”

This not only affects travel, but benefits, banking, and everything else that I in the United States take for granted.

The Wildebeest Speaks On Tactics vs. Strategy

So I finally wrote my new edition of my LinkedIn newsletter The Wildebeest Speaks—“On Types of Expertise”—on March 11.

And then found a spelling error on March 12.

Now if this had been client work, I would have quietly fixed it and went on my merry way.

But I’m more transparent when I’m writing for myself.

So rather than quietly correcting the error, I publicly did so.

The Wildebeest Re-speaks.

In addition to preserving my transparency, the episode allowed me to illustrate the difference between tactics and strategy.

When a writer misspells the word “tactical” in an article and freely admits making the error, this is a tactic…not a strategy.