Work Without the Worker : Labour in the Age of Platform Capitalism

Philip Jones

ISBN 10: 1839760435 / ISBN 13: 9781839760433

Published by Verso Books Okt 2021, 2021

About this Item

Neuware - We are told that the future of work will be increasingly automated. Algorithms, processing massive amounts of information at startling speed, will lead us to a new world of effortless labour and a post-work utopia of ever expanding leisure. But behind the gleaming surface stands millions of workers, often in the Global South, manually processing data for a pittance.Recent years have seen a boom in online crowdworking platforms like Amazon's Mechanical Turk and Clickworker, and these have become an increasingly important source of work for millions of people. And it is these badly paid tasks, not algorithms, that make our digital lives possible. Used to process data for everything from the mechanics of self-driving cars to Google image search, this is an increasingly powerful part of the new digital economy, although one hidden and rarely spoken of. But what happens to work when it makes itself obsolete. In this stimulating work that blends political economy, studies of contemporary work, and speculations on the future of capitalism, Phil Jones looks at what this often murky and hidden form of labour looks like, and what it says about the state of global capitalism.

Seller Inventory # 9781839760433

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Work Without the Worker : Labour in the Age of Platform Capitalism
• Publisher: Verso Books Okt 2021
• Publication Date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1839760435
• ISBN 13: 9781839760433
• Binding: Buch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 199W x 138H x 15D millimeters 199 millimeters width by 138 millimeters height by 15 millimeters depth
• Weight: 206 grams

About this title

Synopsis

An accessible analysis of the new forms of work whose seismic changes will increasingly determine the future of capitalism

Automation and the decline in industrial employment have lead to rising fears of a workless future. But what happens when your work itself is the thing that will make your job obsolete?

In the past few years, online crowdworking platforms - like Amazon's Mechanical Turk and Clickworker - have become an increasingly important source of work, particularly for those in the Global South. Here, small tasks are assigned to people online, and are often used to train algorithms to spot patterns, patterns through machine learning those same algorithms will then be able to spot more effectively than humans. Used for everything from the mechanics of self-driving cars to Google image search, this is an increasingly powerful part of the digital ecomomy. But what happens to work when it makes itself obsolete. In this stimulating work that blends political economy, studies of contemporary work, and speculations on the future of capitalism, Phil Jones looks at what this often murky and hidden form of labour looks like, and what it says about the state of global capitalism.

About the Author

Phil Jones is a research affiliate at Autonomy and a PhD researcher at the University of Sussex. His writing regularly appears in the Guardian and OpenDemocracy.