Automating Essential Work

Millions of people were deemed “essential workers” during the Covid-19 pandemic. To mitigate potentially dangerous exposure to the virus — for both workers and the public — critical sectors rapidly integrated artificial intelligence (AI) in the hopes that technology could perform this material, in-person work. ‘The Transformation of Essential Work’ is a National Science Foundation-funded project that investigated how AI was adopted and adapted by essential workers. As Co-PI’s, Sarah E. Fox and I conducted a multi-sited field study in two critical sectors: recycling sorting and janitorial work.

Our research revealed the way that the imperfect operation of AI increased the amount of labor required of essential workers, and made their daily duties more complex and more technical. Essential workers responded with ingenuity, modifying AI infrastructure and their practices to improve AI on-the-ground. You can read more in our article “Patchwork: The Hidden, Human Labor of AI Integration in Essential Work” (Open Access PDF) published in Computer Supported Cooperative Work.

Journalistic Resource: Tips for Reporting on AI

Download our 1-sheet “Don’t Be A Drone” (PDF).

In the urgent context of the Covid-19 pandemic, we used our initial research findings to create and distribute a set of accessible documents that provided actionable tips for reporters covering AI in essential work sectors. Our 1-sheet encourages journalists to include workers as sources, to visit sites after the moment of introduction, and to be wary of narratives produced tech companies. A shorter, blog-post version for newsrooms is available at the Center for Media Engagement. Our early findings are also detailed in an Executive Summary (PDF). This project was lead by UT journalism major Estefania Rodriguez.

Technology Hype and News Media

Read the article (Gift Link PDF) in Digital Journalism.

Though new stories often celebrate the potential of AI to reduce inefficiencies and drudgery, they rarely include the perspective of on-the-ground workers — the people with the most direct experience with the technology and the most familiarity with its limitations.

We analyzed 10 years of new stories about AI and automation in a “dangerous, dirty and dull” industry that technology companies are trying hard to automate. As the industry shifted towards AI-powered robotics, tech executives set the terms for how AI was portrayed. None of the 80+ articles we analyzed quoted on-the-ground workers. Without their voices, news stories run the risk of becoming another source of tech industry hype.

Representing the Invisible Work of Integration

Read the pictorial (Open Access PDF) in the proceedings of Designing Interactive Systems. Or read the shortened magazine-article version for students in XRDS: Crossroads (PDF).

The accomplishments of essential workers are everywhere — clean floors, sanitized tables, objects made from recycled plastics — though the activities themselves often occur behind the scenes. This illustrated article identifies a set of visual patterns (or “tropes”) that are used in news reporting on automated technologies being implemented in essential workplaces, and ultimately obscure workers.

Our collaborator, Franchesca Spektor, created a set of counter-visuals that don’t just focus on the features of new technology and those who design them, but instead represent the unacknowledged workers who integrate, reconfigure and repair AI.

Repair Labor and Resistance in the Automated Workplace

Machine Visions: A Corporate Imaginary of Artificial Site

Read the article in Information, Communication and Society. Published as part of the special issue on Frictions, Power, and the Politics of Platforms.

Read the article (Open Access PDF) in New Media and Society

The communications team at UT wrote a profile about our research project for International Women’s Month. You can read the full story “Inside Recycling Facilities and the Robots that ‘Run’ Them: The Untold Story of Women and AI”.