<synthesis> SILENT WORKS · Talks · Online-Videos + Live Session Nov. 25

[Krystian Woznicki]

Hi INC folks,

the Berliner Gazette Winter School SILENT WORKS proudly presents an
online talk by *Phoebe Moore* (UK), a researcher pioneering the study of
labor in the digital era. Entitled “AI @ Work: Both Sides of the
Screen,” Dr. Moore’s talk on Nov. 25th at 6 p.m. CET will take us on a
tour of the hidden labor struggles in today’s AI-capitalism. Dr. Moore
is Associate Professor of the Futures of Work at the University of
Leicester, author of “The Quantified Self in Precarity. Work, Technology
and What Counts” (2018) and co-editor of “Augmented Exploitation.
Artificial Intelligence, Automation, and Work” (2021).

For this *live online session* we will use an open source alternative to
corporate ‘data surveillance’ tools like Zoom, called *Big Blue Button*,
which the Berliner Gazette hosts on its own server. It works best with
Firefox and Chrome. Here is the link to the BBB room:
https://bbb.berlinergazette.de/b/mag-9vi-u6z-3bv

*Video-Talks*
Other highlights on the Berliner Gazette Winter School online program
include talks exploring labor struggles in California’s Silicon Valley,
Germany’s Cyber Valley, and India’s IT sweatshops – and back again. The
speakers are Sana Ahmad (India), Masha Burina (Bosnia/US), Jose Miguel
Calatayud (Spain), Benjamin Heisenberg (Switzerland), Luise Meier
(Germany), Yonatan Miller (US), NoCyberValley (Germany), Peng!
(Germany), and Katja Schwaller (Switzerland/US). You can access videos
of their talks on the SILENT WORKS website (https://silentworks.info) or
by scrolling down and clicking the vimeo-links below.

*Katja Schwaller*
https://vimeo.com/480410376
‘Critical infrastructure’ has come to the foreground in the Covid-19
pandemic. Can the invisibilized work of people who are providing
so-called essential services (inside this very infrastructure) become
more visible in the course of this? If so, could this be an unexpected
opportunity for labor struggles? San Francisco-based urban researcher
Katja Schwaller is exploring these questions by focusing in particular
on those areas of society where Big Tech is taking over. A tour to the
dark side of Silicon Valley.

*NoCyberValley*
https://vimeo.com/477785800
“Europe’s largest research consortium in the field of artificial
intelligence with partners from science and industry” is emerging in
Tübingen, a traditional university town in Southern Germany. It is
called CyberValley and aspires to become a global center for high
technology and innovation – just like Silicon Valley in California.
NoCyberValley, a loose alliance of activists who have initiated various
forms of protest, is reclaiming research labor from the claws of
AI-capitalism that delegates it to mice and ‘Amazon scholars.’

*Sana Ahmad*
https://vimeo.com/482367431
Every censored video clip and every comment flagged as spam goes back to
simple binary thinking: appropriate/inappropriate. These decisions
appear to be automated, while in fact thousands of workers in the back
rooms of digital platforms are carrying out these tasks around the
clock: so-called content moderators, who are the invisibilized labor
force holding international web services together. Doing a hard job
under precarious conditions, their struggles in India's IT sweatshops
are the focus of Sana Ahmad’s research.

*Jose Miguel Calatayud*
https://vimeo.com/479073623
The “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and
Humans Apart” (CAPTCHA) is officially a “security measure,” asking users
of “free” web services to identify themselves as human beings.
Differentiating these users from bots, it silently forces users to do
jobs intelligent machines cannot yet do (well enough). The hidden labor
of identifying hardly legible words, blurred pictures or faces is only
the tip of the iceberg. Jose Miguel Calatayud tackles this largely
uncontested labor regime. See also below in the PROJECTS section.

*Luise Meier*
https://vimeo.com/479960168
In AI-capitalism the labor of the machine could be called – following
Karl Marx’s theorization of the industrial revolution – inhuman labor.
As in the industrial age, today’s inhuman labor in AI-driven industries
such as finance, logistics, and, above all, web services, thrives only
by extracting living, that is, human labor. Moreover, like back then,
inhuman labor lives more, the more human labor it extracts. Luise Meier
tackles these largely invisibilized mechanisms, taking us on a tour of
the dull, dangerous, and dirty routines of service work.

*Peng*
https://vimeo.com/477782023
If Lieferando’s food delivery empire is somewhat representative of
today’s AI-capitalism, then we are challenged to explore how we – as
workers and also as users – can act within, against, and beyond this
dehumanizing system of exploitation, extraction, and control. Who do you
work for when your “boss” is an app? How do you go about demanding sick
leave, minimum wage, and a safe job environment when a self-learning
algorithm is in control? Peng! urges us to grapple with these urgent
questions.

*Masha Burina*
https://vimeo.com/479489038
The origin of the term robot is the Czech word ‘robota,’ which can be
translated as ‘compulsory labor.’ A hundred years ago, people imagined
that this work was “dull, dangerous, dirty” – essentially, work that
could not be performed by humans and had to be delegated to machines.
Masha Burina asks: where do the boundaries between (invisibilized)
‘compulsory labor’ and freely chosen work lie today?

*Benjamin Heisenberg*
https://vimeo.com/395129409
Promoting AI, the film industry ever further pushes automation’s “last
mile” – the last tasks in the automation process that cannot be carried
out by machines. For instance, AI-based image production is still backed
up by a huge number of editors manually creating 3D processes, character
animations, and other CGI effects. Benjamin Heisenberg shows, that the
human worker remains both the creative beginning and the necessary final
link of an artistic-industrial process.

*Yonatan Miller*
https://vimeo.com/479490989
When our boss is an algorithm, we as workers are prevented from meeting
each other and organizing ourselves. Nonetheless, we are challenged to
rise up together, establishing local grassroots networks and reinventing
traditional representative structures such as labor unions. Doing so,
how can we actively shape the future of labor struggles and of labor as
such? Yonatan Miller explores the challenges of sustainable organizing
from a practical viewpoint.

Please spread the word!

Best wishes,

Krystian (for the BG team)

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BG – Berliner Gazette | since 1999 | https://berlinergazette.de

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SILENT WORKS – The Hidden Human Labor in AI-Driven Capitalism  
BG Project 2020: Exhibition, Conference + Text Series
https://silent-works.berlinergazette.de

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MORE WORLD – How Can We Cooperate Across Borders to Tackle Climate Change?
Results from BG’s 20th Anniversary Event: Videos, Audios, Projects + Texts 
https://more-world.berlinergazette.de 

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