Related papers: Digital Labor and the Inconspicuous Production of …
AI generates both enthusiasm and disillusionment, with promises that often go unfulfilled. It is therefore not surprising that human labor, which is its fundamental component, is also subject to these same deceptions. The development of…
As the digital economy grows increasingly intangible, traditional productivity measures struggle to capture the true economic impact of artificial intelligence (AI). AI systems capable of cognitive work significantly enhance productivity,…
Labor plays a major, albeit largely unrecognized role in the development of artificial intelligence. Machine learning algorithms are predicated on data-intensive processes that rely on humans to execute repetitive and difficult-to-automate,…
Digital workers on crowdsourcing platforms (e.g., Amazon Mechanical Turk, Appen, Clickworker, Prolific) play a crucial role in training and improving AI systems, yet they often face low pay, unfair conditions, and a lack of recognition for…
Platform laborers play an indispensable yet hidden role in building and sustaining AI systems. Drawing on an eight-month ethnography of Bangladesh's platform labor industry and inspired by Gray and Suri, we conceptualize Ghostcrafting AI to…
The rapid growth of the digital platform economy is transforming labor markets, offering new employment opportunities with promises of flexibility and accessibility. However, these benefits often come at the expense of increased economic…
To harness the true potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for societal betterment, we need to move away from prioritising corporate interests which exploit Global South workers in the digital age. The unpaid labour and societal harms…
Artificial Intelligence with its multifaceted technologies and integral role in global production significantly impacts gender dynamics particularly in gendered labor. This paper emphasizes the need to explore AIs broader impacts on…
Future advances in AI that automate away human labor may have stark implications for labor markets and inequality. This paper proposes a framework to analyze the effects of specific types of AI systems on the labor market, based on how much…
Despite widespread speculation about artificial intelligence's impact on the future of work, we lack systematic empirical evidence about how these systems are actually being used for different tasks. Here, we present a novel framework for…
Invisible labor is work that is either not fully visible or not appropriately compensated. In open source software (OSS) ecosystems, essential tasks that do not involve code (like content moderation) often become invisible to the detriment…
Little by little, newspapers are revealing the bright future that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is building. Intelligent machines will help everywhere. However, this bright future has a dark side: a dramatic job market contraction before its…
The opaqueness of many complex machine learning algorithms is often mentioned as one of the main obstacles to the ethical development of artificial intelligence (AI). But what does it mean for an algorithm to be opaque? Highly complex…
Contemporary automation through AI entails a substantial amount of behind-the-scenes human labour, which is often both invisibilised and underpaid. Since invisible labour, including labelling and maintenance work, is an integral part of…
Generative AI has gained a significant foothold in the creative and artistic sectors. In this context, the concept of creative work is influenced by discourses originating from technological stakeholders and mainstream media. The framing of…
Many recent technological advances (e.g. ChatGPT and search engines) are possible only because of massive amounts of user-generated data produced through user interactions with computing systems or scraped from the web (e.g. behavior logs,…
Technological progress has led to powerful computers and communication technologies that penetrate nowadays all areas of science, industry and our private lives. As a consequence, all these areas are generating digital traces of data…
The emergence of artificial intelligence and robotics is catalyzing a profound transformation in the nature of human labor, fueling a contentious debate about the future of employment. While prominent studies predict substantial job…
Behind the scenes of maintaining the safety of technology products from harmful and illegal digital content lies unrecognized human labor. The recent rise in the use of generative AI technologies and the accelerating demands to meet…
Work is fundamental to societal prosperity and mental health, providing financial security, identity, purpose, and social integration. The emergence of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has catalysed debate on job displacement. Some…