Aranya Sahay’s engaging and poignant debut feature, HUMANS IN THE LOOP, offers a nuanced exploration of Artificial Intelligence technology in India through the perspective of a tribal woman’s experience and her beliefs in the natural order.
The film portrays Nehma, an Adivasi woman who returns to her Jharkhand village with her children, post-divorce. To sustain her family, she becomes a data annotator, a role reflecting the real-life involvement of many indigenous tribal women in India’s burgeoning AI industry.
This uniquely whimsical film weaves a story about the significant yet often unrecognized contributions of women from rural backgrounds in India who undertake meticulous data-labeling tasks foundational to the development of AI.
Sahay explores identity, technology, and empowerment through Nehma and her children’s journey by empathetically exploring how the lived experiences of data annotators can influence AI biases.
The film is a tale that is both cautionary and endearing, prompting viewers to reconsider AI’s ethical dimensions and its impact on social conditioning and on formalizing societal biases, as well as its effects on marginalized communities.
