AI must be addressed as a labor issue, and workers should be part of decision-making in AI policy. Moving beyond common AI tropes and assumptions of mass job displacement, we seek a deeper understanding of how AI is reshaping the value of work, workplace conditions, underlying business models and ultimately, power relations.
Labor Futures
We interrogate how technology is disrupting, destabilizing, and transforming many aspects of work and employment.
Team Members
About
Public debates about “the future of work” are often shaped by hype cycles and industry-driven narratives about the inevitability of tech innovation. Yet these narratives can obscure — or outright dismiss — how technologies impact workers, sidelining and disempowering them and further entrenching racial, gender, and economic oppression.
Our work challenges the assumption that workers are merely passive recipients of technology, and that automation is the solution to a wide range of complex social and economic problems. Through rigorous empirical research and targeted engagement with stakeholders and decision-makers, we aim to create opportunities and levers for workers to shape the technologies that impact their everyday lives. We investigate critical labor topics to shift narratives, expand debate, and inform policy and practice.
Over the years, our work has explored the role of digital worker surveillance and algorithmic inequality, how the tech industry and corporate power are reshaping the economic and political landscapes of labor, and how precarious gig platform models erode labor rights and workplace standards. Today, we focus our attention on applied research, and are pursuing new research on rapid developments in AI and its impact on labor. We are also introducing research that complicates conversations about the future of work by examining issues at the intersection of labor, race, and technology.
Recent Work
Mentions and Press
All Work
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Think Different BlogAiha Nguyen's thoughts on the deeper causes of "workslop" were referenced by the Think Different blog. Read on Think Different BlogMay 2026 -
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PointsJanuary 2026 -
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PointsIn their research on how AI is reshaping modeling work, D&S researcher Alexandra Mateescu and affiliates Zoë West and Sanjay Pinto find a situation ripe for labor exploitation — and glimpse a future where growing numbers of workers face challenges around bodily autonomy, economic security, and control over their public identities. Read on PointsSeptember 2025 -
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PointsAnuli Akanegbu explains why the city of Atlanta is the focus of her research on labor, race, and tech. In this city, "the contradictions of our techno-futures are not hypothetical; they’re lived," she writes. Read on PointsJune 2025 -
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Data & SocietyAnuli Akanegbu reflects on the connections between data practices and systemic racism, and offers a set of recommendations — or resolutions — to guide work that prioritizes the humane over the artificial in 2025 and beyond. Read on Data & SocietyJanuary 2025 -
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PointsThe rise of data-centric technologies is an opportunity for the labor and racial justice movements to build new bridges. Read on PointsJanuary 2023 -
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PointsHow Prop 22 undermines the stability of California’s unemployment system Read on PointsJanuary 2021 -
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PointsPost-Pandemic Automation Part I Read on PointsJune 2020 -
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PointsLow-wage workers need paid sick leave now. The alternative is a permanent state of emergency. Read on PointsApril 2020 -
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PointsCOVID-19 is exacerbating the ‘care crisis’ in society. Read on PointsApril 2020