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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op-ed
The Globe and MailThe new-found power of gig economy workers. Read on The Globe and MailJune 2020 -
blog post
PointsPost-Pandemic Automation Part I Read on PointsJune 2020 -
op-ed
The American ProspectThey deserve the right to protect themselves. Read on The American ProspectApril 2020 -
event
Resource
video
Data & SocietyWendy Liu and Meredith Whittaker discuss how the COVID-19 shutdown is impacting workers and organizing in the technology industry. Read moreApril 2020 -
blog post
PointsLow-wage workers need paid sick leave now. The alternative is a permanent state of emergency. Read on PointsApril 2020 -
blog post
PointsCOVID-19 is exacerbating the ‘care crisis’ in society. Read on PointsApril 2020 -
op-ed
The American ProspectApril 2020 -
Longform
Data for ProgressThis memo serves as a primer on the ways in which displacement has impacted workers in the past to draw lessons for a Green New Deal. Read on Data for ProgressDecember 2019 -
Academic Article
Feminist ReviewSareeta Amrute reframes the narrative around digital laborers to grapple with how we might best protect them. Read on Feminist ReviewDecember 2019 -
Resource
Tech BuzzwordsA crowdsourced dictionary with definitions for tech sector rhetoric and metaphors. Read on Tech BuzzwordsNovember 2019