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Top-level
 As with every question of technology, the issue isn't twiddling *per se* - it's who does the twiddling and who gets twiddled. A worker armed with digital tools can play gig work employers off each other and force them to bid up the price of their labor; they can form co-ops with other workers that auto-refuse jobs that don't pay enough, and use digital tools to organize to shift power from bosses to workers: https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/02/not-what-it-does/#who-it-does-it-to 13/ 4 comments
Reverse centaurism is the 21st Century's answer to #Taylorism, the pseudoscience that saw white-coated "experts" subject workers to humiliating choreography down to the smallest movement of your fingertip: https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/21/great-taylors-ghost/#solidarity-or-bust While reverse centaurism was born in warehouses and other company-owned facilities, gig work let it make the leap into workers' homes and cars. 16/ The 21st century has seen a return to the #CottageIndustry - a form of production that once saw workers labor far from their bosses and thus beyond their control - but shriven of the autonomy and dignity that working from home once afforded: https://doctorow.medium.com/gig-work-is-the-opposite-of-steampunk-463e2730ef0d The rise and rise of #bossware - which allows for remote surveillance of workers in their homes and cars - has turned "#WorkFromHome" into "#LiveAtWork." 17/ |
Gregory's Server
Take #ReverseCentaurs. In AI research, a #centaur is a human assisted by a machine that does more than either could do on their own. For example, a chess master and a chess program can play a better game together than either could play separately. A *reverse* centaur is a *machine assisted by a human*, where the machine is in charge and the human is a meat-puppet.
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