{
  "id": 9208765,
  "title": "Surprise, Meta's latest AI gimmick is just underpaid humans",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/22/surprise-metas-latest-ai-gimmick-is-just-underpaid-humans",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-09-22T20:22:37.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "The A.V. Club",
    "slug": "the-a-v-club",
    "url": "https://www.avclub.com/meta-muse-ai-human-labor"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Meta’s latest AI creation, Muse, has been exposed as a mere facade for underpaid human labor, according to a report by 404 Media. The AI product, designed to make calls for those too timid to dial a barbershop, is essentially a human agent layer handling calls to other humans. Despite Meta's claim of expanding Muse to phone beta use for making outbound calls to US businesses, 404 Media has revealed that \"a human agent layer\" is doing the real work. The company's reluctance to release Muse in its current state stems from concerns over potential negative publicity, with employees warning that it could be portrayed as \"their AI is not good enough so they still need humans\" coverage. This is not the first time AI has been found to be little more than hidden labor, often sourced from countries like Venezuela and Kenya, where workers train and moderate AI models.",
  "summary": "Much like the rest of the AI industry, Meta is using human workers to make its AI agents look like magic.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}