The platformization of labor and society:

why humans are actually taking  robots’ jobs   

 Abstract:

Digital platforms can be construed as hybrid entities between markets and firms, which create value by algorithmically leveraging content, services, and data generated by their users. Moreover, platforms play a fundamental role in allocating underpaid or unpaid digital tasks to users. In order to enable and coordinate their contributions, platforms put in place digital labor processes that are instrumental to the production of artificial intelligence and machine-learning solutions. Since recent developments in economic theory have questioned the displacement effects of AI on employment (i.e. the century-old “robots will steal our jobs” hypothesis), research is underway to surface the actual amount of visible and invisible human labor necessary to produce automated solutions.

Speaker:

Antonio A. Casilli is an associate professor at the Telecommunication School of the Paris Polytechnic Institute (Télécom ParisTech) and an associate fellow at the Critical Interdisciplinary Anthropology Center (LACI-IIAC) at the School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences (EHESS, Paris). His main research foci are computer-mediated communication, work, and politics. In addition to several scientific publications in French, English, Spanish, Hungarian, and Italian, he is the  author of “En attendant les robots” ([Waiting for Robots], Paris: Seuil, 2019), “Qu’est-ce que le digital labor?” ([What is digital labor?], Paris: Editions de l’INA, 2015), “Les liaisons numérique”s ([Digital relationships]; Paris: Seuil, 2010).

Organiser:

CEFC Taipei 法國現代中國研究中心台北分部

Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica 中央研究院社會學研究所

Sponsors:

Bureau Français de Taipei 法國在台協會

The talk will be given in English. Registration is not required.

Access and transportation:  

https://www.iis.sinica.edu.tw/page/aboutus/Directions.html?lang=en