后工作时代  – Work Without the Worker by Phil Jones

有人告诉我们，未来的工作将会越来越自动化，算法将以惊人的速度处理大量讯息，将带我们进入轻松工作的新世界。但是，在闪闪发光的表象背后，是数以百万计的工人正在以人工一点一点地处理数据。

从无人驾驶汽车到图像搜索，数字经济突飞猛进的背后，是少有人知的暗箱劳动——处理大量数据不是AI，而是通过网络远程接单的贫困人口。亚马逊CEO贝索斯一小时能赚1300万美元，一个教贝索斯的算法如何识别汽车的工人一小时仅赚几美分。赤裸生命构成的巨大贫民窟与AI加持的财富先锋之间的鸿沟不断扩大。鼠标轻点，野蛮和崇高就彼此捆定。

一方面，系统不再创造有发展前景的新工作机会，也不再推动生产力进步；另一方面，廉价的人类劳工变成人工智能的末端，从事最枯燥重复的外包工作，还得不到正式聘用的保障。

我们看到一个萌芽中的未来，所有正规岗位被瓦解，资本继续拥有和控制生产资料，但不再雇用人类。工人从旧有工作的尸骸中获得各种低技能的劳动，为机器提供数据，勉强维生。本应照亮我们世界的工具正在将我们扔进技术引发的新的蒙昧之中，并最终陷入野蛮状态。

我们是如何走到今天这一步的？如何才能阻止终极噩梦的降临？

现在，希望出现了。正是那些被当下抛弃的人才拥有未来。

An accessible analysis of the new forms of work whose seismic changes will increasingly determine the future of capitalism

Automation and the decline in industrial employment have lead to rising fears of a workless future. But what happens when your work itself is the thing that will make your job obsolete?

In the past few years, online crowdworking platforms – like Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and Clickworker – have become an increasingly important source of work, particularly for those in the Global South. Here, small tasks are assigned to people online, and are often used to train algorithms to spot patterns, patterns through machine learning those same algorithms will then be able to spot more effectively than humans. Used for everything from the mechanics of self-driving cars to Google image search, this is an increasingly powerful part of the digital ecomomy. But what happens to work when it makes itself obsolete. In this stimulating work that blends political economy, studies of contemporary work, and speculations on the future of capitalism, Phil Jones looks at what this often murky and hidden form of labour looks like, and what it says about the state of global capitalism.