Practically speaking, “AI” has become a synonym for automation, along with a similar if not identical set of unwarranted claims about technological progress and the future of work. Workers over the better part of the past century, like most members of the general public, have had a great deal of difficulty talking about changes to the means of... See more

Employers have deployed the use of algorithms to exert immense control over the labor process, using digital platforms to break up jobs and surveil how quickly workers complete those tasks, as with Amazon’s use of algorithms to push warehouse workers, or hail-riding apps speeding up drivers. Digital platforms have allowed employers to extend... See more

AI is yet another chapter in this story of technological utopianism to degrade labor by rhetorically obscuring it.