<synthesis> SILENT WORKS · Reviews

[Krystian Woznicki]

Hi INC-folks,

last week the most recent text about the BG's 2020 SILENT WORKS project
(https://silentworks.info) was published and we are taking this as an
occasion to present a selection of reviews that were published in this
year so far.

*Phoenix Nomi: Summoning the Ghost in the Machine*
"Despite the dystopian undertones, the message in SILENT WORKS is
ultimately one of hope: solidarity is the glue that reconnects humans to
the meanings of our actions. We still have the power to change, and
working together as equals is the only way forward."
https://news.techworkerscoalition.org/2021/09/06/issue-17/

*Gavin Mueller: Turning the Magic of AI Inside Out*
"The Berliner Gazette seems to have immediately grasped the significance
of Covid-19 to the already existing trajectories of capitalism’s
technological restructuring, or in their words ‘the pandemic-related
crisis as a crisis of AI-capitalism’."
https://www.onlineopen.org/silent-works-the-hidden-labor-of-ai-capitalism

*Kevin Rittberger: Against AI capitalism’s fantasies of powerlessness*
"It is time to recognize Inhuman Labor as Janus-faced: on the one hand,
the inhumane working conditions, including the impossibility of
precarized wage workers to use AI for emancipative, sustainable and
non-capitalist purposes; on the other, Big Tech’s fantasy of
powerlessness, which needs to be exposed as just that."
https://springerin.at/en/2021/1/isilent-worksi/

*Jaron Rowan: Knowledge in Action*
"Ways of knowing that can give a voice to those who suffer from the
imposition of algorithmic logic at work; to the invisible bodies
entangled in distribution and logistics chains; to the workforce
regulated by apps, algorithmic calculations, geo-locations and
notifications."
https://non.copyriot.com/knowledge-in-action/

*Jess Henderson: Full Automation, Full Fantasy*
"The fact that there are real people having to witness and manually
assess content (from banal fodder to ‘the pornographic, the obscene, the
violent, the illegal, the abusive, and the hateful’) illustrates how AI
capitalism is not just a matter of real-existing AI at work, but also a
matter of the fantasy and appearance of AI at work."
https://www.harun-farocki-institut.org/de/2021/01/25/full-automation-full-fantasy-2/

*Georg Fischer: Making "hidden work" on digital platforms visible* (GER)
"Processes controlled by "artificial intelligence" often appear to
proceed independently. In fact, however, humans perform numerous, often
very monotonous activities in the background. The ambiguous title of one
of the workshop projects "Artificial Artificial Intelligence (AAI)"
refers to this as fake artificial intelligence."
https://irights.info/webschau/website-macht-verborgene-arbeiten-auf-digitalen-plattformen-sichtbar/30547

*Gesa Ufer: The Work Behind The Click* (GER)
"Algorithms will do our work for us, is one of the slogans of
digitalization. The conference and exhibition SILENT WORKS of the online
newspaper Berliner Gazette wants to make the "dirty work" behind the
beautiful surfaces visible."
https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/konferenz-silent-works-die-arbeit-hinter-dem-klick.2156.de.html?dram:article_id=487124

*Lara Luna Bartley: The Invisible Hand*
"SILENT WORKS got me thinking about invisibilized work more broadly. A
t-shirt is made once, but it is washed hundreds of times. And yet, our
economic systems ascribe economic value to the inititial making but not
the subsequent care."
http://www.laralunabartley.com/home/the-invisible-hand

Kind regards,

Krystian (for the BG team)

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

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BLACK BOX EAST – "Post-Communist" Laboratories of Globalization
BG Project 2021: Workshops, Texts + Artworks
https://blackboxeast.berlinergazette.de

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SILENT WORKS – The Hidden Labor in AI-Capitalism  BG Project 2020: Exhibition, Conference + Texts
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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