In this paper, we examine the work of data annotation. Specifically, we focus
on the role of counting or quantification in organising annotation work. Based
on an ethnographic study of data annotation in two outsourcing centres in
India, we observe that counting practices and its associated logics are an
integral part of day-to-day annotation activities. In particular, we call
attention to the presumption of total countability observed in annotation - the
notion that everything, from tasks, datasets and deliverables, to workers, work
time, quality and performance, can be managed by applying the logics of
counting. To examine this, we draw on sociological and socio-technical
scholarship on quantification and develop the lens of a 'regime of counting'
that makes explicit the specific counts, practices, actors and structures that
underpin the pervasive counting in annotation. We find that within the AI
supply chain and data work, counting regimes aid the assertion of authority by
the AI clients (also called requesters) over annotation processes, constituting
them as reductive, standardised, and homogenous. We illustrate how this has
implications for i) how annotation work and workers get valued, ii) the role
human discretion plays in annotation, and iii) broader efforts to introduce
accountable and more just practices in AI. Through these implications, we
illustrate the limits of operating within the logic of total countability.
Instead, we argue for a view of counting as partial - located in distinct
geographies, shaped by specific interests and accountable in only limited ways.
This, we propose, sets the stage for a fundamentally different orientation to
counting and what counts in data annotation.

研究数据注释的工作，特别关注计数或量化在组织注释工作中的作用。基于对印度两个外包中心的数据注释的民族志研究，观察到计数实践及其关联逻辑是日常注释活动的一个重要组成部分。提出计数制度的镜头，明确支持注释广泛的计数所依赖的特定计数、实践、参与者和结构。发现在人工智能供应链和数据工作中，计数制度有助于人工智能客户（也称为请求者）对注释过程的权威主张，使其变得简化、标准化和同质化。通过这些影响，说明了在全面可计算的逻辑下操作的局限性，并提出将计数视为局部化、由具体利益塑造且仅在有限程度上可追溯的观点。据此，提出了对计数和数据注释的基本不同取向的舞台设定。