The Digital Factory

The Human Labor of Automation

Moritz Altenried

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9780226815503
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Engineering General
• Index: Technology & Engineering

The Digital Factory reveals the hidden human labor that supports today's digital capitalism. The workers of today's digital factory include those in Amazon warehouses, delivery drivers, Chinese gaming workers, Filipino content moderators, and rural American search engine optimizers. Repetitive yet stressful, boring yet often emotionally demanding, these jobs require little formal qualification, but can demand a large degree of skills and knowledge. This work is often hidden behind the supposed magic of algorithms and thought to be automated, but it is in fact highly dependent on human labor.The workers of today's digital factory are not as far removed from a typical auto assembly line as we might think. Moritz Altenried takes us inside today's digital factories, showing that they take very different forms, including gig economy platforms, video games, and Amazon warehouses. As Altenried shows, these digital factories often share surprising similarities with factories from the industrial age. As globalized capitalism and digital technology continue to transform labor around the world, Altenried offers a timely and poignant exploration of how these changes are restructuring the social division of labor and its geographies as well as the stratifications and lines of struggle.

Index

Accenture, 151, 176

Adecco, 44

advertising, platform: political economy of, 124–26

aerial delivery, 47–48

AI. See artificial intelligence (AI)

Airbnb: as urban infrastructure, 161

algorithmic architectures: and control, 126–30; and crowdwork, 92, 105, 120, 141; and labor, 4–7, 18, 92, 105, 120, 126–30, 141; and logistics, 18, 22–24, 27–29, 50, 53–54, 57, 59, 126–30; and platforms, 92, 126–30, 142–44, 154; and social media, 126–30, 141–44, 154; and technology, 173

algorithmic management: and crowdwork, 93, 96, 106–7, 111; and digital factories, 7–8; and digital technology, 8; and logistics, 23, 38, 40, 43, 47, 50, 53–54, 57–59; and platforms, 159, 162, 172; and surveillance, 93

algorithms: and AI, 99, 105; and containerization, 23–24, 28–29; and crowdwork, 98–101, 105, 107, 119, 154, 172; and digital factories, 6; and gaming, 14; and globalization, 29; and infrastructure, 13–15, 93, 126–30, 141, 162–63, 173; and labor, 6–7, 19, 128–29, 162, 172; and logistics, 23–24, 28–29; and platforms, 14, 162–63, 172–73; and social media, 128–29, 142–44, 154, 172; and social sciences, 182n13; and software, 13–14

Alibaba, 29, 124, 135

Amazon: and aerial delivery, 47–48; Alibaba as competitor, 29; CamperForce, 45; cloud computing, 30, 94, 161; and commercial drones, 48; and COVID-19 profits, 175; data centers, 30, 136; data mining, 31; distribution centers, 18, 31–36, 41–47, 57, 105, 157–62, 167–72; and e-commerce, 30, 161–62; Flex program, 51, 55–59, 159, 161, 162–63...