Robotize this! The futures of automation and work
International Conference, Thursday October 3rd, 9AM to 6PM
McLuhan Centre for Culture and Technology
39A Queens Park Crescent East, University of Toronto
Are robots coming for our jobs? The current resurgence of anxiety around automation seems to suggest they are. But other symptoms point out that robots will rather make us work more, and in new ways. And then, what kind of jobs, and what kind of robots? The robotization of traditionally gendered and racialized forms of work is not neutral. And robots will better learn to collaborate with workers if capital is to keep extracting value from living labour. This international conference will discuss the past, present, and many possible futures of automation. This needs to be approached from many different angles. Our human speakers come from media studies, engineering, technology studies, literature, and labour studies. The day will be opened by an international graduate colloquium on digital labour. We will also pay a visit to robots and do our best to befriend them.
The workshop is a collaboration between the International Network on Digital Labor, which is funded by a University of Toronto – CNRS Joint Research Proposal Grant, and the McLuhan Centre for Culture and Technology.
Sign up at this link: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/robotize-this-the-futures-of-automation-and-work-tickets-70277735599
Attendance to the event is limited. Priority will be given to graduate students and faculty members researching work and digital technology. Tickets will be confirmed two weeks prior to the conference.
PROGRAM:
9:00 AM to 09:30 PM: Welcome and Coffee
9:30 AM to 12:30 PM: Graduate Colloquium on Digital Labour
Speakers:
Sana Ahmad, Weizenbaum Institute.
- Guardians of the Internet – Analysing the Social Media Moderation Industry and Offshored Work Processes in India
Marcelo Castro, University of Toronto
- The Emergence and Rise of Platform Cooperatives: Elements for Transformation of the Sharing Economy
Ellen Kaufman, Indiana University
- Digital Intimacy and the Future of (Sex) Work
Zachary La Rock, University of Chicago
- Trapped in Motion? Situating Risk and Value in the Last Mile of Logistics Subcontracting
Sarah Marquis, University of Guelph
- Social Impacts of Digital Precision Agriculture Technologies in a Canadian Context
Elinor Wahal, Telecom Paris
- Sociability and Collaboration in a Digital Labour Platform
Discussants:
Greig de Peuter, Wilfrid Laurier University
Sarah Sharma, University of Toronto
Chairs:
Julian Posada, University of Toronto
Brendan Smith, University of Toronto
12:30 PM to 2:00 PM: Lunch Break
2 PM to 5 PM: Workshop “Robotize This!”
Speakers:
Shane Saunderson, University of Toronto
- Social robots: Your future coworkers
Antonio Casilli, Paris School of Telecommunications
- We are the robots: the online workers who make AI (im)possible
Frauke Zeller, Ryerson University
- What we can learn from a hitchhiking robot when talking about robot co-workers
Greg Albo, York University
- From the great automation scare to postcapitalism
Jennifer Rhee, Virginia Commonwealth University
- Labor, gender, and the robotic imaginary
Chairs:
Paola Tubaro, CNRS Paris
Alessandro Delfanti, University of Toronto