01/22/20 – Dylan Finch – Ghost Work

Summary of the Reading

Humans are part of today’s “artificial intelligence.” They work to fill in the gaps and improve the results. Their effects can be seen everywhere, from Facebook feeds to Google search results. These people operate, unbeknownst to the general public. In 2015, nearly 20 million U.S. adults worked in this new shadow industry. This is only expected to increase, as more and more companies turn to this type of work to deal with the shortcomings of A.I. They also need these workers to get A.I started with training sets of data. This work is unseen and at the same time, extremely important to the modern world. 

Businesses use ghost work when they need to do something that is too complex for a computer or something that requires judgement calls or creativity. Large tasks like distinguishing between appropriate and inappropriate content are broken up into small pieces (one image or post at a time) and given to countless workers across the globe, who collectively solve the bigger problem. Intermediaries connect companies who need tasks done to people all over the world who are willing to complete them. These people are not paid a wage or a salary, but are paid for each completed task. Businesses seem to be moving more and more of their work to these types of on-demand jobs, eliminating “primary,” “long-term employment” and replacing it with these “gig” jobs.

Amazon Mechanical Turk (or MTurk) is one of the first and biggest places that connects tasks to people. People from all over the world use the site for its convenience and on-demand employment. Most earn about $4,000/yr, with some earning four times this. 

Reflections and Connections

I think that this book provides a very interesting look into the world of our current, flawed A.I. I had no idea that so much of the work that is supposedly done by A.I. today is actually done by human workers. The fact that everything from Google search results, to Facebook’s feed, validating identity for Uber is done by humans is crazy to me. I also find the system by which humans are able to do all that work very interesting. The fact that there are whole companies dedicated to connecting tasks to people who will complete those tasks is amazing to me. Beyond that, I had no idea that so many people worked in this industry that I had never heard of. The fact that even 20 million Americans work in this industry show its far reaching scope. 

This type of work really does seem like the future to me. As more and more people are pushed out of their jobs by automation and “A.I.” and more and more people use services that rely on this industry of ghost work crop up, it seems like it will become an increasingly large part of the global economy. To a certain extent this could be a good thing. The ability to get almost instantaneous answers from a person somewhere around the world is an invaluable tool and it allows many people to take up easy work that they can do from home. Beyond that, the work seems very easy to get into and fairly easy to do. It seems perfect for workers that are being pushed out of their jobs by automation. Obviously problems may arise with worker’s rights, but those could be solved.

I think that this book takes a much needed critical look at the perceived magic of modern A.I. However, I also think that at times, the author is needlessly pessimistic towards the future of A.I. On page xxi, they use the example of labeling places as good wedding venues, saying how an A.I. would need to know what the best wedding venue would need to be in order to compare other venues to it. However, there are other ways you could train an A.I. to label wedding venues. And, humans also have trouble labeling wedding venues for other humans. Each person has their own preferences. I think this is a bad example of the shortcomings of A.I. and I think that as time goes on and more and more data is provided to A.I. by these ghost workers, we will be able to solve more and more problems with A.I. I would even argue that there is a not too distant future where A.I.s can complete any task that humans could do. It is unfair to write off A.I.s now. They are really still a very young technology and some hiccups should be expected with any new technology.

I also agree with the call for transparency. Companies should be honest and tell consumers or their business partners when their technology uses human labor instead of real automated labor. They should not be allowed to pass off human work as A.I. work.

Questions

1. Is this the end of all non-gig work? Will there be no place for salaried or hourly employees in the future?
2. Will there ever be an end to the paradox of automation’s last mile? Will we ever achieve real A.I. that can really do anything?
3. Are systems like Amazon’s Mechanical Turk ethical? Is it ok to allow sites like these to continue to operate will little regulation and no checks on the system?