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Ghost Work
Cover of Ghost Work
Ghost Work
How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass
Borrow Borrow

In the spirit of Nickel and Dimed, a necessary and revelatory expose of the invisible human workforce that powers the web—and that foreshadows the true future of work.
Hidden beneath the surface of the web, lost in our wrong-headed debates about AI, a new menace is looming. Anthropologist Mary L. Gray and computer scientist Siddharth Suri team up to unveil how services delivered by companies like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Uber can only function smoothly thanks to the judgment and experience of a vast, invisible human labor force. These people doing "ghost work" make the internet seem smart. They perform high-tech piecework: flagging X-rated content, proofreading, designing engine parts, and much more. An estimated 8 percent of Americans have worked at least once in this "ghost economy," and that number is growing. They usually earn less than legal minimums for traditional work, they have no health benefits, and they can be fired at any time for any reason, or none.
There are no labor laws to govern this kind of work, and these latter-day assembly lines draw in—and all too often overwork and underpay—a surprisingly diverse range of workers: harried young mothers, professionals forced into early retirement, recent grads who can't get a toehold on the traditional employment ladder, and minorities shut out of the jobs they want. Gray and Suri also show how ghost workers, employers, and society at large can ensure that this new kind of work creates opportunity—rather than misery—for those who do it.

In the spirit of Nickel and Dimed, a necessary and revelatory expose of the invisible human workforce that powers the web—and that foreshadows the true future of work.
Hidden beneath the surface of the web, lost in our wrong-headed debates about AI, a new menace is looming. Anthropologist Mary L. Gray and computer scientist Siddharth Suri team up to unveil how services delivered by companies like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Uber can only function smoothly thanks to the judgment and experience of a vast, invisible human labor force. These people doing "ghost work" make the internet seem smart. They perform high-tech piecework: flagging X-rated content, proofreading, designing engine parts, and much more. An estimated 8 percent of Americans have worked at least once in this "ghost economy," and that number is growing. They usually earn less than legal minimums for traditional work, they have no health benefits, and they can be fired at any time for any reason, or none.
There are no labor laws to govern this kind of work, and these latter-day assembly lines draw in—and all too often overwork and underpay—a surprisingly diverse range of workers: harried young mothers, professionals forced into early retirement, recent grads who can't get a toehold on the traditional employment ladder, and minorities shut out of the jobs they want. Gray and Suri also show how ghost workers, employers, and society at large can ensure that this new kind of work creates opportunity—rather than misery—for those who do it.

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About the Author-
  • MARY L. GRAY is a Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research and Fellow at Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. She is also Associate Professor of the School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering with affiliations in the Media School, Anthropology, and Gender Studies at Indiana University. Mary draws on anthropology, gender studies, and media theory to understand how technology access, material conditions, and everyday uses of media transform people's lives.
Reviews-
  • Publisher's Weekly

    February 25, 2019
    This revealing economic ethnography from anthropologist Gray and computer scientist Suri, both of whom work for Microsoft, sympathetically tells the stories of “ghost workers” who assist computers in replicating human cognition. These workers sign on through clearinghouses such as Amazon’s Mechanical Turk to perform tasks—writing subtitles for videos, identifying offensive content or animal pictures—remotely and for very low pay. Lack of transparency about the workers’ existence, the authors argue, gives the impression that artificial intelligence alone is powering ride sharing apps, internet searches, and other contemporary conveniences. Gray and Suri, who traveled to interview and observe ghost workers in the U.S. and India, explain that ghost workers are a vulnerable labor force; they have no rights as employees and little recourse if they are wrongfully fired or go unpaid. Yet the authors find that the anonymity and flexibility is a boon to some, such as female and disabled laborers who would otherwise face discrimination, and caregivers who need flexibility. To combat exploitation, Gray and Suri call for benefits for workers, unions, and new clearinghouses that allow for human communication between employer and employee. This compassionate and informative study is a must-read for anyone interested in the future of work.

  • Kirkus

    April 1, 2019
    An exploration of the hidden human labor force that works with artificial intelligence to power many popular websites and apps. As Microsoft Research senior analysts Gray and Suri note, some 20 million individuals worldwide make up an "on-demand gig economy," working as freelancers to handle judgment-call tasks that computers do not do--from moderating content and editing product reviews to developing web pages--and executing such high-tech piece work (for apps like Uber and websites like Facebook) in isolation, amid great uncertainty, without feedback or benefits, and under no clear labor laws. Drawing on a pioneering five-year study of workers in the United States and India, the authors provide a revealing, overly detailed view of this rapidly growing world of "ghost work," in which "faceless" labor platforms (at the behest of well-known firms) hire workers represented by numbers rather than names. The platforms organize, route, and schedule projects to individuals working from home or elsewhere. This prospect--not the takeover of work by robots--represents the "inevitable" future of jobs, argue the authors. The book includes portraits of many workers such as Karen, a 37-year-old stay-at-home mom who does captions for an on-demand platform called Amara, earning $15 per hour; and Zaffar, 26, an IT graduate who handles tasks for LeadGenius, another platform, from his home in India. Most are college graduates under age 40, and many have failed to find--or do not want--9-to-5 jobs. Some are disabled, retired, or caring for children or elderly relatives; all take on first-come, first-served assignments at their convenience. Worker experiences are mixed: Some hustle to land steady work, while others find some of the hundreds of platforms (Amazon's MTurk, Microsoft's UHRS, LeadGenius, and Amara are examined in detail) hard to understand. Nearly a third report being unpaid for work completed. The authors urge many reforms, including a safety net for future workers and "company-issued, shared workspace." A sobering book for policymakers and anyone considering on-demand gigs.

    COPYRIGHT(2019) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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Ghost Work
Ghost Work
How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass
Mary L. Gray
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