{"id":19602,"date":"2025-01-10T14:15:12","date_gmt":"2025-01-10T13:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/i3-cnrs.fr\/evenement\/waiting-for-robots-by-antonio-a-casilli\/"},"modified":"2026-10-12T15:43:35","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T14:43:35","slug":"waiting-for-robots-by-antonio-a-casilli","status":"publish","type":"actualite","link":"https:\/\/i3-cnrs.fr\/en\/actualite\/waiting-for-robots-by-antonio-a-casilli\/","title":{"rendered":"Waiting for Robots by Antonio A. Casilli"},"content":{"rendered":"

Antonio A. Casilli<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

With a Foreword by\u00a0Sarah T. Roberts<\/a>
\nTranslated by\u00a0Saskia Brown<\/a><\/p>\n

Artificial Intelligence fuels both enthusiasm and panic. Technologists are inclined to give their creations leeway, pretend they\u2019re animated beings, and consider them efficient. As users, we may complain when these technologies don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

In this bracing and powerful book, Casilli uses up-to-the-minute research to show how today\u2019s technologies, including AI, continue to exploit human labor\u2014even ours. He connects the diverse activities of today\u2019s tech laborers: platform workers, like Uber drivers and Airbnb hosts; \u201cmicro workers,\u201d 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\u2019re 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\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

Waiting for Robots <\/i>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\u2019t dream of a world without drudgery and exploitation. Casilli\u2019s eye-opening book makes clear that most \u201cautomation\u201d requires human labor\u2014and likely always will\u2014shedding new light on today\u2019s consequences and tomorrow\u2019s threats of failing to recognize and compensate the \u201cclick workers\u201d of today.<\/p>\n

Buy this book<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An essential investigation that pulls back the curtain on automation, like AI, to show human workers\u2019 hidden labor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":19716,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"class_list":["post-19602","actualite","type-actualite","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","entry","has-media"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/i3-cnrs.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/actualite\/19602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/i3-cnrs.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/actualite"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/i3-cnrs.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/actualite"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i3-cnrs.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/i3-cnrs.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}