Waiting for Robots

"In this feisty manifesto, Casilli accuses the tech industry of using automation to exploit a growing digital workforce. . . . Casilli’s sobering perspective makes clear that the dangers posed by AI are more mundane, if no less insidious, than commonly imagined, and the recommendation to implement a 'universal digital income'—in which profits reaped by tech companies from monetizing user data are taxed and redistributed to the public—is bold and original. A troubling snapshot of the future of work, this unnerves." * Publishers Weekly *
"Disturbing. . . . Artificial intelligence, according to its advocates, holds out the promise of an end to mind-numbing, exploitative work. Casilli . . . vehemently disagrees. He argues that it has merely changed the type of labor and the structure of the exploitation, and he has a mountain of research to support his case. . . . Casilli has identified a host of problems in the brave new world of AI, and perhaps this book can be a good place to start thinking about solutions. Revealing the dirty secrets of the AI revolution—and offering ideas for a path forward." * Kirkus Reviews *
“Waiting for Robots, sweeping in its scope but exacting in its analysis, addresses the myriad, often hidden and unexpected ways AI is reconfiguring the nature of work, jobs, and labor worldwide. Written with verve and grace, Casilli’s account stands out as one of the most perceptive and critical accounts of AI that has come out in recent times.” -- Gabriella Coleman, Harvard University, author of "Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous"
“Casilli's pioneering book, now updated and available for the first time in English, completely upends the celebratory myths about AI. Through a quite remarkable range of international fieldwork, Casilli shows how exploited human workers, usually in the Global South, not only train AI, but often literally do the exhausting work branded as ‘artificial’ intelligence. A devastating portrait of the realities of the capitalist platform economy.” -- Nick Couldry, London School of Economics and Political Science, coauthor of “Data Grab: The New Colonialism of Big Tech and How to Fight Back”
“In this brilliant, important book, Casilli upends the standard Promethean narrative that AI is here to liberate humankind from dull, dirty, and dangerous work. He explores, instead, the opposite tendency: tech advances dependent on exploited and precarious labor. Grounded in the stories of delivery drivers, taskers, and microworkers condemned to piecework, and leavened by a sophisticated understanding of the political economy of automation, Waiting for Robots offers a compelling vision for a truly inclusive tech economy.” -- Frank Pasquale, professor of law, Cornell University, author of “New Laws of Robotics: Defending Human Expertise in the Age of AI”
“In Waiting for Robots, Casilli offers a sweeping exploration of digital labor, analogous to Melville's meticulous chronicles of the whaling industry. Casilli takes readers on a provocative journey where human work is not disappearing but evolving in unexpected ways. With a blend of analysis and a subtly wry sense of humor, he debunks the myth of AI-driven job replacement, exposing how human labor is reconfigured and concealed within digital platforms. Bridging history, media, philosophy, and business, this page-turning work redefines our understanding of digital labor and underscores the enduring significance of human work. An indispensable guide for scholars and general readers alike.” -- R. Trebor Scholz, New School, author of "Own This!: How Platform Cooperatives Help Workers Build a Democratic Internet"
“This book arrives just in time: in a moment in which the collective has focused its greatest dreams, or deepest anxieties, depending on where you sit, on the imminent reordering of society under the regime of large language model–fueled natural language processing tools such as ChatGPT and other AI-based automation of all sorts. . . . As Casilli reminds us, the ‘digit’ of ‘digital labor’ refers to numbers, yes, but it also refers to the digits of the hand, leaving their fingerprints wherever they touch these technologies, as long as we know where, and how, to look.” -- Sarah T. Roberts, University of California, Los Angeles, author of "Behind the Screen: Content Moderation in the Shadows of Social Media," from the foreword