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Don’t Be Fooled: Much “AI” is Just Outsourcing, Redux
Janet Vertesi is associate professor of sociology at Princeton University, where she is an expert in the study of science, technology, and organizations.
In a brand-new book, sociologist Benjamin Shestakofsky relates life at a startup whose US-based engineering team was so busy interviewing recruits and scaling up to please its investors that it offshored its entire “AI” product to workers in the Philippines who responded to tasks one at a time. Colleagues at Princeton and I have described a process we call “pre-automation” where companies employ humans to perform the tasks promised by automated systems, extracting unpaid labor and investment capital on the one hand, while deregulating a sector in favor of a monopoly on the other. US policymakers and workers alike would do well to heed the lessons of the last forty years of outsourcing and its effects upon the labor market, and move quickly to legally protect the skilled workforce at home and avoid shortchanging partners abroad.
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