The Human AI Art Award 2025 honors French artist and filmmaker Nicolas Gourault for Unknown Label (2023), a documentary video installation focusing on the invisible labor of online microworkers (“clickworkers”) who label data for artificial intelligence, especially in the context of autonomous vehicles.
Through immersive documentary storytelling, Unknown Label draws attention to the hidden human infrastructure underpinning today’s artificial intelligence. Nicolas Gourault’s installation foregrounds the lived experiences, challenges, and agency of clickworkers whose labor shapes the datasets behind machine learning. By illuminating these often-overlooked contributors, the work prompts critical reflection on the ethics of automation, the global networks of digital labor, and the blurred boundaries between human and machine intelligence in contemporary society.
