Date: February 28th, 2025
Time: 12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
Format: In person and online
Location: HQ 276 (Lunch will be provided for in-person attendees)
Abstract:
This talk explores a persistent phenomenon in AI development: the recurring promise of complete automation that perpetually remains just out of reach while obscuring the essential human labor that powers AI systems. Drawing from global research on AI production networks, he examines how the narrative of inevitable total automation serves to hide the growing workforce of data laborers, content moderators, and infrastructure maintenance workers. Casillianalyzes this ‘Godot Effect’ across multiple sectors and proposes new frameworks for understanding AI not as a purely technological system but as a manifestation of capitalist labor practices that thrive on colonial exploitation and global workforce invisibility.
Bio:
Antonio Casilli is a Professor of Sociology at the Institut Polytechnique de Paris and a member of the CNRS Interdisciplinary Institute on Innovation. His research focuses on digital labor, AI workers’ rights, and platform capitalism. His influential publications have been translated into several languages. His latest book, originally published in French as “En attendant les robots” (Seuil, 2019), has been published in English by the University of Chicago Press as “Waiting for Robots” (2025). He has co-founded several international initiatives, including the research program DiPLab (Digital Platform Labor) and INDL (International Network on Digital Labor).
