Dr. Milagros Miceli Named to TIME 100 AI 2025

Brain City Berlin

Berlin-based sociologist and computer scientist Dr. Milagros Miceli has been included in TIME Magazine’s 2025 list of the 100 most influential people in the field of Artificial Intelligence. Miceli conducts research in the “Internet and Society” division at Technische Universität Berlin and leads the research group “Data, Algorithmic System, and Ethics” at the Weizenbaum Institute. Her project “Data Workers’ Inquiry” gives voice to data workers and draws attention to injustices in AI labour.

“We are ghosts to society, and I dare say we are cheap, disposable labor for the companies we have served for years without guarantees or protection,” writes data worker Oskarina Veronica Fuentes Anaya. On the “Data Workers’ Inquiry” platform, she published a animated film that illustrates the precarious working and living conditions of data workers in Latin America. Data workers are individuals who feed artificial intelligence, structure, categorize, annotate, and moderate data. They operate largely invisibly and often under exploitative and precarious conditions.

The “Data Workers’ Inquiry” was initiated and implemented by Dr. Milagros Miceli as part of a research project. The Berlin-based sociologist and computer scientist, who has been researching in the Internet and Society division at TU Berlin since 2018 and leads the research group “Data, Algorithmic Systems and Ethics” at the Weizenbaum Institute, was recognized for this work by the U.S. magazine TIME in its current list “The 100 Most Influential People in Artificial Intelligence” (TIME 100 AI), which also includes tech innovators such as Elon Musk, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg. In contrast to these tech entrepreneurs, Miceli’s research does not focus on technological advancement but rather on the ethical and social implications of artificial intelligence. Her work centers on the production of the datasets used to train AI systems. Miceli not only investigates how these datasets are structured but also under what conditions they are created and who produces them. “Initially, I was mainly interested in power relationships in data sets, the ‘ground truth‘." But in the course of my field research, it became clear that the most serious power asymmetries lie in the precarious, often exploitative working conditions. That's why I broadened my focus.,” Miceli explains in an interview with TU Berlin.

On the Data Workers’ Inquiry platform, data workers speak for themselves. Through podcasts, comics, videos, and essays, they share their experiences with platform labour, psychological stress, economic insecurity, social inequality, and resistance. What makes the project unique is that the data workers are actively involved as “community researchers” in shaping and conducting the study. “Our aim was not to conduct ‘research‘ on" them, but to create spaces for self-empowerment. While the reports provide first-hand accounts of structural exploitation, they also tell of resistance and solidarity,” says Miceli. She views her research not only as a critical engagement with technology but also as a political contribution toward greater justice in the digital labour world. Her commitment extends beyond academia: In November 2024, Miceli, together with data workers from the project, spoke at a parliamentary hearing in Brussels with members of parliament about the precarious and exploitative working conditions in the AI industry and presented the study “Who Trains the Data for European Artificial Intelligence.”

The “TIME 100 AI” list was published for the third time overall in 2025. The TIME editorial team evaluates the most significant AI developments of the past year and gathers recommendations from experts and industry leaders. (vdo)