Waiting for Robots: The Hired Hands of Automation

An essential investigation that reveals the labor of human workers hidden behind a curtain of apparent technological automation.

Artificial Intelligence fuels both enthusiasm and panic. Technologists are inclined to give their creations leeway, pretend they’re animated beings, and consider them efficient. As users, we may complain when these technologies don’t obey, or worry about their influence on our choices and our livelihoods. And yet, we also yearn for their convenience, see ourselves reflected in them, and treat them as something entirely new. But when we overestimate the automation of these tools, award-winning author Antonio A. Casilli argues, we fail to recognize how our fellow humans are essential to their efficiency. The danger is not that robots will take our jobs, but that humans will have to do theirs.

In this bracing and powerful book, Casilli uses up-to-the-minute research to show how today’s technologies, including AI, continue to exploit human labor--even ours. He connects the diverse activities of today’s tech laborers: platform workers, like Uber drivers and Airbnb hosts; ＂micro workers,＂ including those performing atomized tasks like data entry on Amazon Mechanical Turk; and the rest of us, as we evaluate text or images to show we’re not robots, react to Facebook posts, or approve or improve the output of generative AI. As Casilli shows us, algorithms, search engines, and voice assistants wouldn’t function without unpaid or underpaid human contributions. Further, he warns that if we fail to recognize this human work, we risk a dark future for all human labor.

Waiting for Robots urges us to move beyond the simplistic notion that machines are intelligent and autonomous. As the proverbial Godot, robots are the bearers of a messianic promise that is always postponed. Instead of bringing prosperity for all, they discipline the workforce, so we don’t dream of a world without drudgery and exploitation. Casilli’s eye-opening book makes clear that most ＂automation＂ requires human labor--and likely always will--shedding new light on today’s consequences and tomorrow’s threats of failing to recognize and compensate the ＂click workers＂ of today.

Antonio A. Casilli is professor of sociology at the Polytechnic Institute of Paris and a member of the Interdisciplinary Institute on Innovation of the French National Center for Scientific Research. In addition to co-leading the research team DiPLab (Digital Platform Labor), he is the co-founder of the International Network on Digital Labor. Saskia Brown has translated many books from French.