‘Dignity-driven AI’? This chatbot advocates for domestic workers

Like many domestic workers, Leydy is no stranger to wage theft. In a previous job, Leydy had been hired as a cleaner and then asked to take on more and more responsibilities, from cooking to childcare—with no additional pay. When she approached her employer and said she either needed a raise or additional help, she was fired, and she never got paid for her work that week. “In my rage, I went to the police,” she told Fast Company through a translator. (Leydy requested to only use her first name to avoid potential retaliation.) “They told me I had to get a lawyer and go to court in Newark. If I wasn’t getting paid, how could I pay for a lawyer?” A new AI chatbot built by and for domestic workers could help people like Leydy find some recourse when they are confronted with abusive employers. The National Domestic Workers Alliance—a nonprofit that advocates to improve labor rights and working conditions for nannies, cleaners, and home care workers—just launched a multilingual chatbot called Ask Aya, which aims to help educate domestic workers on their rights, negotiate pay with employers, and even draft employment contracts. Over the years, NDWA has experimented with different tech solutions to improve outreach and foster solidarity among domestic workers, who tend to work alone and are often siloed in their jobs. These workers are also overwhelmingly women of color—a significant share of whom are also undocumented—and they are excluded from federal labor protections, which leaves them vulnerable to being exploited in the workplace and at greater risk of retaliation if they push back. NDWA has invested in tools to help these workers create written contracts to formalize their employment and even secure benefits like paid time off; during the pandemic, NDWA’s Coronavirus Care Fund provided tens of millions of dollars in cash assistance to domestic workers who suddenly found themselves out of a job. When NDWA conceived of Ask Aya, the intent was to center workers in