Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New

Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass

In the spirit of Nickel and Dimed, a necessary and revelatory expose of the invisible human workforce that powers the webâ€”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 â€œghost economy,â€ 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 inâ€”and all too often overwork and underpayâ€”a surprisingly diverse range of workers: harried young mothers, professionals forced into early retirement, recent grads who canâ€™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 opportunityâ€”rather than miseryâ€”for those who do it.
Country USA
Manufacturer Harper Business
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2019-05-07
Format Kindle eBook

Country	USA
Manufacturer	Harper Business
Binding	Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate	2019-05-07
Format	Kindle eBook

Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass

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