Waiting for Robots: The Hired Hands of Automation

Casilli (sociology, Institut Polytechnique de Paris; Against the Hypothesis of the End of Privacy), the cofounder of International Network on Digital Labor, argues that the modern digital labor force faces similar exploitation as earlier labor forms. While popular media warns of impending human obsolescence as robots replace human employees, Casilli cites academic studies that show this won’t be the case. He asserts that AI isn’t replacing human labor on digital platforms as much as it’s making it less visible. People routinely provide the training and managing of AI for many platforms, while also regularly filling in the gaps for incomplete AI. This book describes the transfer of work as technology evolves by mentioning ATMs in the 1980s as an example. ATMs didn’t make bank tellers obsolete. Instead, bank tellers shifted from primarily serving as cashiers to offering a wider array of services. Casilli presents numerous examples of unrecognized and unseen digital labor, such as social media posting and tagging.