I got a mixed reaction Waiting for the robot: the hired hand of automation By Antonio Caseri.
The powerful point it does is the complete dependence of AI and digital technology on human inputs that are generally ongoing. Years ago, my husband – the BBC technology reporter of the time – was digging up facts about the hyped dot com company Spinvox. It was said that the business was not an automated voice transcription, but it turns out that the work was primarily done by humans rather than computers (the story was scratched, but linked posts respond to company points). Waiting for a robot provides many examples of apps that involve cheap human labor rather than digital magic. I was surprised by this. Not so surprising – and actually covered in other books like Madumiat Murugia’s recent Code Dependencies – Do you use humans in content moderation (remember that a major social media company did it?), data labeling from mechanical turks, and other services use human feedback from LLMS to enhance learning.
The book also makes much more argued as “labor,” which is what I disagree with. Of course, the big tech benefits from content I post online, such as my digital exhaust and cute dog photos. However, this seems to me different from the frequently (severely) paid employment relationship. Network effects and habit stickiness may keep me on certain services, but companies may set defaults to hoover my activity data, but the power dynamics are different. For example, you can switch from X to Bluesky or from Amazon to your local bookstore. So I’m not a fan of portraying these types of data provisions as more “digital labor.”
That being said,He books It creates a compelling case of robots and humans interdependent and staying as is. Generation AI requires intervention to avoid human-generated materials (“data”) and models from the disruption. Humans also have to pay for digital services, so they need to pay. It is clear that market/platform/ecosystem structures are currently tilted away from robot owners and humans, so it is important to focus on the economic dynamics involved. So here we find an anti-capitalist perspective on tackling challenges that are not persuased by the different types of “digital labor” classifications (and apart from others) anti-capitalist perspective on tackling non-conspicuous challenges. I’m waiting for the robot.
