Labouring for automation

While Covid-19 has accelerated automation in many fields of work, and boosted the profits of global tech giants such as Amazon, it has also put increased pressure on some of the human labour that underpins many automated systems and services. We talk a great deal about the jobs that will be wiped out by automation, a lot less about those that are being created by it.

This human labour is very often hidden from view, but is essential to the continued success of these businesses. As consumers, we may have little awareness of the essential role that human beings perform in seemingly highly-automated tasks such as online retail or content moderation, or the extent to which the notion of clean, efficient automation hides less palatable practices.

Insecurity, poor terms and unsafe conditions

The hidden work that allows these companies to thrive is often carried out by people on poor terms and conditions, insecure contracts or levels of risk that other workers would not be asked to endure. Late last year, an open letter from 200 Facebook moderators in Ireland to bosses including Mark Zuckerberg highlighted the risks they are facing in being forced to work from offices rather than at home.

Facebook had attempted to fully automate moderation, but found that their systems were just not up to the task; they couldn’t replicate the nuanced decision-making of human moderators. We can browse in (relative) safety because these outsourced workers wade through offensive and dangerous content, and in the case of the Irish moderators, work in offices that they felt were unsafe during Covid.

Stark contrasts in different parts of the tech world

For other companies, human workers train algorithms to identify unsuitable content, again being exposed to the psychological damage it may inflict, or generate data to train other types of automated system or test the accuracy of searches. Many of these workers are dispersed around the world, and enjoy nothing like the job security, conditions or pay enjoyed by those directly employed by the tech companies. The contrast between the hip and glamorous world of tech we are shown, and the reality of the workers’ lives that underpin the technologies they sell, could hardly be more stark.

This crucial labour is unacknowledged in the narratives around sleek, efficient new products and services, sold to us as safe, cheap and ready to make our lives infinitely better. Retail and delivery giants talk of automated warehouses, and a future of delivery by drone. But these approaches do not take humans out of the equation, they just change the conditions under which people work.

Rather than replace warehouse workers, robots might just be making them work even harder. A drone might do the ‘last mile’ delivery, but a human will still need to pack the boxes and load the drones. As long as we are living with Covid, work like this is not entirely safe.

As consumers, we should be more curious about how ‘automated’ goods and services are provided; however the weight of responsibility lies mainly on employers and businesses that rely on hidden labour. Greater transparency would be a first step, but more significant would be moves towards parity of pay, conditions and status. Until this happens, we are reliant on brave individuals to speak out.

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Labouring for automation

Insecurity, poor terms and unsafe conditions

Stark contrasts in different parts of the tech world

© 2019 ABD Consultancy

anna@abdconsultancy.co.uk

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