5 research outputs found
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The Nonmachinables: Asymptotic Labor and the Political Economy of Contemporary Information-Processing Systems
This study introduces the concept of “asymptotic labor” through three case studies examining the political economy of contemporary information-processing systems. It aims to contribute additional historical and theoretical perspective to the strong foundation of existing critical research that has revealed the “hidden” human workforce that props up the vast digital infrastructure of artificial intelligence. The first chapter chronicles the design and development of CAPTCHA and reCAPTCHA, suggesting a critical periodization of these cybersecurity systems based on their different methods of validating human and nonhuman users. The evolution of CAPTCHA is deeply intertwined with the rapid ascendance of machine learning as the dominant form of artificial intelligence in the mid-2000s, and presages the emergent methods of value capture that undergird these data-intensive systems. The next chapter builds on this latter premise, utilizing semiotics as a method for dissecting the mechanisms of meaning-making and value production at the core of these complex information-processing systems, as well as the ways that they have become implicated in a broader set of political-economic conditions. Finally, an ethnographic account of a specialized class of workers at the United States Postal Service ties together the more theoretically-laden arguments of the preceding chapters by demonstrating the social, political, and material implications that the development and implementation of these information-processing systems have on the dwindling number of humans that remain embroiled in their continuing operations
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Worker Ownership, COVID-19, and the Future of the Gig Economy
Based on a summer 2020 survey with 302 workers for app-based gig companies in California, this report presents the impact of COVID-19 on those workers and their reactions to new models of worker ownership in the gig economy. We also draw from in-depth interviews with 15 workers and 9 experts on labor issues and worker-owned and labor contracting cooperative models, along with an extensive literature review.The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the precarity of gig work, exacerbating its well-documented exploitative conditions, including wage theft and routine violations of laws designed to protect workers’ health and safety. These conditions are enabled in app-based gig work by the lack of control, transparency, and stability experienced by this workforce. Misclassified gig workers—without access to paid sick leave, Unemployment Insurance, workers’ compensation, company-provided personal protective equipment (PPE), or income predictability—face a heightened risk of COVID-19 infection, food insecurity, and homelessness.The report is presented in three parts: (1) findings from survey responses regarding working conditions during COVID-19, (2) feedback from gig workers on a cooperative contracting model for the sector, and (3) case studies of cooperative and contracting models from other sectors
Recommended from our members
Worker Ownership, COVID-19, and the Future of the Gig Economy
Based on a summer 2020 survey with 302 workers for app-based gig companies in California, this report presents the impact of COVID-19 on those workers and their reactions to new models of worker ownership in the gig economy. We also draw from in-depth interviews with 15 workers and 9 experts on labor issues and worker-owned and labor contracting cooperative models, along with an extensive literature review.The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the precarity of gig work, exacerbating its well-documented exploitative conditions, including wage theft and routine violations of laws designed to protect workers’ health and safety. These conditions are enabled in app-based gig work by the lack of control, transparency, and stability experienced by this workforce. Misclassified gig workers—without access to paid sick leave, Unemployment Insurance, workers’ compensation, company-provided personal protective equipment (PPE), or income predictability—face a heightened risk of COVID-19 infection, food insecurity, and homelessness.The report is presented in three parts: (1) findings from survey responses regarding working conditions during COVID-19, (2) feedback from gig workers on a cooperative contracting model for the sector, and (3) case studies of cooperative and contracting models from other sectors
Recommended from our members
Fast-Food Frontline: COVID-19 and Working Conditions in Los Angeles
The fast-food sector is an integral part of the food sector in Los Angeles, employing 150,000 Angelenos in 2019 and comprising over a third of Los Angeles’s restaurant workers. Fast-Food Frontline: COVID-19 and Working Conditions in Los Angeles is based on 417 surveys and fifteen in-depth interviews with non-managerial fast-food workers in Los Angeles County conducted between June and October 2021. The study finds that fast-food workers in Los Angeles County are at higher risk of contracting COVID-19, in addition to facing difficult work conditions that became more acute during the pandemic. The report provides an in-depth portrait of COVID-19 safety compliance through the lens of fast-food workers themselves, the vast majority of whom are women and workers of color. Among other findings, the report finds that nearly a quarter of fast-food workers contracted COVID-19 in the last eighteen months, and less than half were notified by their employers after they had been exposed to COVID-19. Further, almost two-thirds of workers have experienced wage theft, and well over half have faced health and safety hazards on the job, amounting to injuries for 43% of workers. Researchers emphasize the urgency of implementing public policy solutions that are tailored to fast-food workers’ needs and strengthen fast-food workers’ voice in their industry.