The cultural work of microwork

tags: Ghost Work

Notes

human-as-a-service

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The body of computers doing this work would not be the artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms technologists had hoped, but rather legion human workers

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how value accumulates through web and crowdsourcing practices and to whom that value accrues

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asks of the kinds of relationships AMT promises between users (here, the employers) and the infrastructural technology (here, humans-as-a-service)

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Where AI has fallen short, AMT compensates by constructing a new frontier

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Rather than managers of global data facto- ries, microwork employers can imagine themselves as technologists and innovators engaged in non-hierarchical peer production

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M Six Silberman

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Amazon has little reason to even this information asymmetry as Amazon’s global reach and the American recession makes workers plentiful. Employers, by con- trast, must be recruited

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By developing AMT, Amazon retained its existing divisions of labor and organizational practices – the same structures into which they hoped to integrate AI approaches – while integrating on-demand human workers.

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data of cultural life that have proven difficult or impossible for silicon-based computers to order in culturally competent ways

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ideological work that brings the lived realities of AI’s shortcomings in line with abstract ideals of the computational sciences

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problems of worker management are handled as computational problems.

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role of the sociotechnical in doing the cultural work of microwork

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requesters count the most plural as the most accurate, stick that in their database, and reward workers accordingly

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shift in AI and natural language processing research that has traditionally used experts

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work that is already reduced to many small information tasks

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dispute resolu- tion between workers and employers becomes intractable. Dealing with workers as indi- viduals with specific circumstances costs the employer more than the cost of dismissal and recruitment

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Microwork companies attract more generous investment terms when investors perceive them as technology companies rather than labor companies

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some humans are hackers, builders, and programmers and other humans are computational power

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image of a computing primate (Figure 2), marking AMT workers as somehow stripped of fully self-actualized humanity

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tedious work necessary but unbecoming of idealized “creative” workers

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cognitive surplus

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distinguishing “dull,” “brainless” work from the work of creating systems and building

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emphasize how employers can get more done faster and at larger scales

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work in new ways

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figure workers as innovators’ Other

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Euro-American technologists recurrently imag- ine computing as feminized servants, assistants, and supports to users

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The first set of reservations focuses on fairness. Is it fair to pay workers what often amounts to less than American minimum wage?

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Another set of reservations center on the construction of AMT work as menial or uncreative.

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As the machine breaks down, so does the putatively non- hierarchical workplace; some person must be delegated the machinic role.

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AMT offers new media “crea- tives” the benefit of the doubt

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Notes

human-as-a-service

The body of computers doing this work would not be the artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms technologists had hoped, but rather legion human workers

how value accumulates through web and crowdsourcing practices and to whom that value accrues

asks of the kinds of relationships AMT promises between users (here, the employers) and the infrastructural technology (here, humans-as-a-service)

Where AI has fallen short, AMT compensates by constructing a new frontier

Rather than managers of global data facto- ries, microwork employers can imagine themselves as technologists and innovators engaged in non-hierarchical peer production

M Six Silberman

Amazon has little reason to even this information asymmetry as Amazon’s global reach and the American recession makes workers plentiful. Employers, by con- trast, must be recruited

By developing AMT, Amazon retained its existing divisions of labor and organizational practices – the same structures into which they hoped to integrate AI approaches – while integrating on-demand human workers.

data of cultural life that have proven difficult or impossible for silicon-based computers to order in culturally competent ways

ideological work that brings the lived realities of AI’s shortcomings in line with abstract ideals of the computational sciences

problems of worker management are handled as computational problems.

role of the sociotechnical in doing the cultural work of microwork

requesters count the most plural as the most accurate, stick that in their database, and reward workers accordingly

shift in AI and natural language processing research that has traditionally used experts

work that is already reduced to many small information tasks

dispute resolu- tion between workers and employers becomes intractable. Dealing with workers as indi- viduals with specific circumstances costs the employer more than the cost of dismissal and recruitment

Microwork companies attract more generous investment terms when investors perceive them as technology companies rather than labor companies

some humans are hackers, builders, and programmers and other humans are computational power

image of a computing primate (Figure 2), marking AMT workers as somehow stripped of fully self-actualized humanity

tedious work necessary but unbecoming of idealized “creative” workers

cognitive surplus

distinguishing “dull,” “brainless” work from the work of creating systems and building

emphasize how employers can get more done faster and at larger scales

work in new ways

Even critics of AMT’s treatment of workers argue microwork’s value lies primarily in expanding computational innovation and, implicitly, the social goods they imagine such innovation brings

figure workers as innovators’ Other

Euro-American technologists recurrently imag- ine computing as feminized servants, assistants, and supports to users

The first set of reservations focuses on fairness. Is it fair to pay workers what often amounts to less than American minimum wage?

Another set of reservations center on the construction of AMT work as menial or uncreative.

As the machine breaks down, so does the putatively non- hierarchical workplace; some person must be delegated the machinic role.

AMT offers new media “crea- tives” the benefit of the doubt