Seminar 1: Artificial Intelligence Rights, Wrongs & Work

University of Essex Centre for Commons, Organising, Values, Equalities and Resist/resiliance (COVER) ‘s research cluster AI + Future of Labour & Work (AI FLWR) London seminar series is organised with the Institute for the Future of Work (IFOW), and for our first seminar, with the Digital Futures of Work Research Centre (Digit) at the Alliance Manchester Business School.

Since Hubert Dreyfus warned the first artificial intelligence researchers that their epistemological assumptions for how the human mind works, which would determine how machinic thinking would work, were based in Cartestian dualism; and since Joseph Weizenbaum switched off the first chatbot ELIZA he had invented, because of the oddly positive response to its uncannily good responses to its ‘patients’, there have been variable responses to the integration of technologies into society. During the current AI summer – periods of AI interest have been named after human seasons – a range of discussions around what rights and ethics frameworks should be sourced or written emerged. Another debate surrounding whether robots should have rights also emerged. Meanwhile, many potential wrongs are also emerging, including the great reveals for sexism and racism and other forms of discrimination, which emerged from the supposedly intelligent use of software for recruitment and hiring purposes. Machine learning features have recognised patterns of human inequality based on the datasets used for training them; chatbots given AI liberty to speak as they ‘wanted’ to, quite quickly went from kawai to terrifying; and surveillance software is becoming increasingly invasive in-home working environments; and even includes affective computing technological competencies. 

These seminars will address how AI rights and wrongs are emerging today in the world of work, and what can be done about it.

Wednesday, 10th July 7 pm + at the Royal George  We will also live stream the event, stay posted for the link.

Kai-Hsin Hung (he/him) is a PhD candidate at HEC Montréal specialising in the quality of work in AI value chains. Kai is currently a Marie Jahoda Visiting Fellow with the Digital Futures of Work Research Centre (Digit) at the Alliance Manchester Business School.

The Workings of Planetary Computation: From Planetary Assemblages of Coloniality to the Quality of Work in the Data and Artificial Intelligence Sectors

The talk will explore ongoing research examining the new power architecture of data and artificial intelligence (AI) in driving a tiered global data economy and what this might mean for the quality of work for AI and data workers in Canada and India. This talk aims to broaden current conversations and reframe the object of so-called “responsible and human-centric” AI by questioning how it produces divergent outcomes for groups of workers.

What is new is the consolidation of a planetary-scale architecture of computation that is interwoven with an Internet-scale labour market for human intelligence that is reassembled into what is known as the current form of ‘AI’. As part of planetary computation, we unfold how AI is expressed globally, nationally, and locally, across knowledge, geographies, and bodies.

Using mixed methods of in-depth interviews and surveys with nearly 100 participants in Canada and India since 2019, we get to meet the humans who are working in AI’s localized production and labour processes with data workers and model workers who are essential in making planetary computation work to understand their realities, and quality of work. Kai is excited to share parts of his doctoral dissertation and papers in development. Your engaged participation and constructive comments are warmly welcomed and encouraged.