
Title:
Waiting for robots : the hired hands of automation
Publication Date:
2025
Publication Information:
Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2025.
©2025
Physical Description:
xvi, 309 pages ; 23 cm.
ISBN:
9780226837079
9780226820958
Abstract:
"Artificial Intelligence fuels both panic and enthusiasm. Technologists are inclined to give their creations leeway, pretend they're animated beings, and consider them efficient. Users complain when these technologies don't obey; we worry about their influence on our choices and our livelihoods; and we yearn for their convenience. We see ourselves reflected in them, and we treat them as something entirely new. However unwillingly, when we overestimate the performance of these tools, we fail to recognize how our fellow humans contribute to their efficiency. In this bracing and powerful book, sociologist and award-winning author Antonio Casilli uses up-to-the-minute research to show how AI continues to exploit human labor, including yours. He connects the diverse activities of today's tech laborers: platform laborers, like Uber drivers and Airbnb hosts; remote workers, performing atomized tasks like data entry on Amazon Mechanical Turk; and you, as you evaluate text or images to show you're not a robot, react to Facebook posts, or approve ChatGPT output. Using diverse examples, Casilli reveals that most "automation" still requires human labor, showing both tomorrow's threats and today's consequences for failing to recognize and compensate human workers"-- Provided by publisher.
Contents:
Introduction -- What automation?. Will humans replace robots? ; What's in a digital platform? -- Three types of digital labor. On-demand digital labor ; Microwork ; Social media labor -- The horizons of digital labor. Work outside work ; How do we classify digital labor? ; Subjectivity at work, globalization, and automation -- Conclusion. What is to be done?
Language:
English
Additional Language:
Text in English translated from the French.