DiPLab, as one of the co-organizers of INDL-8 (the 8th annual conference of the International Network on Digital Labor), has allocated 11 scholarships to support travel, accommodation, and meals of promising speakers. The theme of this year’s conference is “Contesting Digital Labor: Resistance, Counter-uses, and New Directions in Research”. The recipients represent a global cohort of emerging scholars whose research touches upon the social and economic impacts of digital labor worldwide. The studies they will be presenting at INDL-8 span diverse topics and geographic contexts—from AI work in Romania, to gig work in India and Brazil, to freelance work in Argentina. They will be addressing critical issues like algorithmic management, gender dynamics, and health impacts. Here is the final list of our recipients: * Gonzague Isirabahenda (Universitatea Babeş-Bolyai [Cluj-Napoca], Romania) for the paper Reconsidering the implementation of Artificial intelligence in call centre jobs: Ethnographic study * Mariana Fernández Massi (CONICET, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas [Buenos Aires], Argentina) for the paper Algorithmic management and labour control on freelance platforms (in collaboration with Julieta Longo)   * James Oyange (African Content Moderators Union [Nairobi], Kenya), for the paper Empowering AI’s Invisible Workforce: Advancing Transparency and Data Protection for Data Workers. * Ethan Chiu (Yale University [New Haven], USA), for the paper The Human Circuit: A Comparative Study of the Semiconductor Industry’s Labor Conditions in the US and Taiwan * Debarun Narayan Dutta (Hertie School of Governance [Berlin], Germany) for the paper Orchestrating Mobility – How Immigration Agencies, Universities, and Platform Companies Construct the Migration and Labor Pathways of Indian Food Delivery Workers in Berlin * Dipsita Dhar (Centre for Studies of Regional Development, Jawaharlal Nehru University [New Delhi], India), for the paper From Riders to Influencers: The “Gigfluencer” Phenomenon in Ridesourcing DLPs (in collaboration with Ashique Ali Thuppilikkat) * Neha Gupta (Tata Institute of Social Sciences [Mumbai], India), for the paper Motherhood at the margins: ASHAs and the digital labour of antenatal care work * Søren Bøgh Sørensen (Copenhagen Business School [Copenhagen], Denmark), for the paper The Humans Behind the Filter: Uncovering the Costs and Consequences of Content Moderators in Kenya (in collaboration with Ephantus Kanyugi) * Amanda Biazzi (Universidade Estadual de Maringá [Maringá], Brazil), for the paper Technostress and the Health Related Risks on Content Production of Self-Employed Professionals: A Study with Brazilian Psychologists * Kanikka Sersia (Graduate Institute of International and Development studies [Geneva], Switzerland), for her paper Algorithms and the politics of production in the platform economy * Subhashri Sarkar (Indian Institute of Science Education and Research [Mohali], India), for the paper Precarity in Motion: Gendered Experiences in India’s Ride-Hailing Platform Work Please join us at the Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna (Aula Magna, Santa Cristina venue), on September 10, 9am to meet our recipients at the scholarship ceremony during the opening session of the INDL-8 conference.

As one of the main organizers behind the 8th annual conference of the International Network on Digital Labor (INDL-8), DiPLab is proud to announce that our comprehensive program is now online, setting the stage for September 10-12, 2025, when Bologna will host one of the largest gatherings in digital labor research. his milestone event brings together a global network of researchers, practitioners, and activists to bridge the critical gap between academic investigation and the lived realities of workers’ struggles worldwide. Through our collaborative partnership with the University of Bologna, Fondazione Di Vittorio, and the International Labor Organization (ILO), we have crafted a program that reflects our commitment to understanding digital work not as an abstract phenomenon but as a concrete set of practices that reshape lives, communities, and economies across the globe. This year’s theme, “Contesting Digital Labor: Resistance, counter-uses, and new directions for research,” emerges directly from DiPLab’s core mission to promote social change by illuminating the material conditions of the production of AI technologies. In particular, documenting how workers navigate, resist, and reimagine the digital economy’s constraints and opportunities has become a central issue. We have managed to accommodate nearly 200 oral presentations and posters, drawing speakers from six continents who will engage in discussions that stretch across disciplines and countries, creating the kind of interdisciplinary dialogue that has always been central to DiPLab’s approach. INDL-8 features keynote speaker Sarah T. Roberts (UCLA), who will examine “The Hydra of Artificial Intelligence: Labor Devaluation and Erosion of Human Agency,” drawing on her research as author of “Behind the Screen: Content Moderation in the Shadows of Social Media” and director of UCLA’s Center for Critical Internet Inquiry. María Luz Rodríguez Fernández (Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha) will present “Property rights and monetisation of the personal data of platform workers,” based on her work as former ILO Senior Specialist and author of over 200 publications on platform economy labor law. Sandro Mezzadra (University of Bologna) will deliver his talk “Beyond resistance. Digital Labor, Social Cooperation and Infrastructural Struggles,” contributing his expertise in political theory and contemporary capitalism analysis. The program also features a groundbreaking one-day event with a panel featuring AI data workers. The venue is actually the most original aspect, as the panel will take place inside an actual data center—the Tecnopolo DAMA. This represents an unprecedented opportunity to hear the firsthand accounts of the material conditions and human experiences behing AI, that our research seeks to understand and improve. Moreover, it will be a great opportunity to foster solidarity by establish a dialogue between European, South American, and African new and “legacy” union leaders and community organizers. The conference’s special union panel includes Joan Kinyua, President of the Data Labelers Association; Felipe Corredor Álvarez, co-founder of Riders x Derechos and former Deliveroo rider with a PhD in Social Psychology; and Kauna Malgwi, co-founder of the Africa Content Moderators Union, who was named among Time’s 100 most influential people in AI for 2024 and testified before the European Parliament on digital platform work conditions. Beyond traditional academic sessions, we have secured some of the University of Bologna’s most historic venues, situating our contemporary concerns within centuries of scholarly tradition, while our dedicated evening tour will explore Bologna through the lens of its activist movements, connecting past struggles with present-day digital labor organizing.

At the WORK2025 conference in Turku, Finland, DiPLab co-founders Antonio Casilli and Paola Tubaro presented the results of their ongoing research documenting the human labor networks that power artificial intelligence systems worldwide. Casilli’s keynote (video 00:29-1:36:00), “Where does AI come from? Global circulation of data and human labor behind automation,” emphasized that AI systems are fundamentally built upon hidden human labor—specifically digital annotation, verification, transcription, moderation, and impersonation of data. This labor is fragmented, precarious, and carried out through digital platforms, predominantly by workers in the Global South who remain unrecognized in dominant AI discourses. Casilli presentation starts with an excerpts from the documentary In the Belly of AI (co-written with Julien Goetz and directed by Henri Poulain), describing the working conditions of women annotating data and producing AI from Finnish prisons for 3 euros per day. In the rest of his keynote speech, drawing from the decade-long research of the DiPLab program, Casilli explored how data work is organized across Africa, Asia, Latin America, as well as Europe and North America, revealing models that support different types of data tasks while reinforcing enduring inequalities in wages, job security, and working conditions that particularly affect Global South workers. He highlighted the increasingly convoluted nature of these supply chains involving several intermediaries—from global tech firms to local freelancers—spanning continents, making it extremely challenging to trace accountability and working conditions. Tubaro’s presentation, “Women in the loop: the gendered contribution of data workers to AI,” examined who actually performs this crucial but undervalued work, focusing on women’s participation as the market has expanded. While data work appears theoretically well-suited for women since it can be performed remotely from home and platforms generally limit direct gender discrimination, statistical evidence reveals mixed patterns with women exceeding 50% of data workers in only four documented cases. Her research showed that in crisis-stricken countries like Venezuela, international platforms attract highly qualified workers in fierce competition, often dominated by young men with STEM backgrounds who crowd out women constrained by care responsibilities or fewer technical qualifications. Conversely, in more dynamic economies like Brazil, local job markets absorb highly skilled professionals, leaving platform work to more disadvantaged groups where women with family duties become more visible. This creates a paradox where women may be equally educated but lack time to cultivate advanced STEM skills, and as platforms demand longer, more specialized tasks, men increasingly gain advantages even in countries where women were once the majority. Both presentations converged on a critical insight: platform design treats workers as abstract entities, stripped of socio-economic and cultural contexts that shape real inequalities, while competition combined with local conditions deepens gender and regional disparities. sq

DiPLab researchers Paola Tubaro and Antonio Casilli recently completed a research mission to Santiago, Chile, participating in key academic events that advanced understanding of artificial intelligence’s social and environmental dimensions. Tubaro delivered a keynote address at the 4th annual workshop of the Millennium Nucleus on the Evolution of Work (M-NEW), where she serves as a senior international member. The interdisciplinary workshop convened labor scholars from across Latin America and internationally to examine contemporary work transformations. Her presentation drew on DiPLab’s multi-year research program investigating the invisible human labor underlying global AI production. Tubaro’s analysis traced the evolution of this work form over two decades, demonstrating that while core functions in smart system development have remained consistent, the scope and volume of these tasks have expanded significantly. Tubaro and Casilli also participated in the inaugural meeting of SEED (“Social and Environmental Effects of Data connectivity: Hybrid ecologies of transoceanic cables and data centers in Chile and France”), a new collaborative research project between DiPLab and the Millennium Nucleus FAIR (“Futures of Artificial Intelligence Research”). The project has received joint funding from the ECOS-SUD programme (France) and ANID (Chile) to analyze the complete AI value chain, examining production, development, employment impacts, usage patterns, and environmental consequences through comparative study of the Valparaíso-Santiago de Chile and Marseille-Paris corridors. In their SEED presentations, Tubaro and Casilli introduced the concept of the “dual footprint” as an analytical framework for understanding the interconnected environmental and social impacts of AI systems. This heuristic device captures commonalities and interdependencies between AI’s effects on natural and social environments that provide resources for its production and deployment. DiPLab researchers framed the AI industry as a transnational value chain that perpetuates existing global inequalities. Countries driving AI development generate substantial demand for inputs while externalizing social costs through the value chain to more peripheral actors. These arrangements distribute AI’s costs and benefits unequally, resulting in unsustainable practices and limiting upward mobility for disadvantaged countries. The dual footprint framework demonstrates how environmental and social dimensions of AI emerge from similar structural dynamics, providing a unified approach to understanding AI’s comprehensive impact on global resource systems.

Our DiPLab seminar will welcome on July 03, 2025, at 3:30 PM CET, Professor Francisca Gutiérrez Crocco (Universidad Austral de Chile). The seminar will be held both in person and online, at ISC-PIF, 113 rue Nationale, 75013 Paris, France. To register, click on the button below and fill out the form. The seminar is free to attend and in-person. Register to seminar Patching Algorithmic Management in Digital Delivery Platforms > In this Seminar, I will develop the concept of patching to analyse how digital > platforms maintain algorithmic power in the face of worker disruption. Drawing > on a four-year qualitative study of food delivery services in Chile and > Argentina, I will shift the analytical focus from couriers to support staff—an > often overlooked group tasked with resolving algorithmic failures. I will > describe five key functions that support staff perform to sustain platform > control over couriers: detecting disruptions, prioritising threats, creating > and implementing solutions, and imitating algorithmic outputs. I will argue > that platform control over couriers relies not only on automated decisions but > also on discretionary, often concealed, human interventions. While support > staff play a pivotal role in stabilising systems, they themselves are > subjected to tight algorithmic surveillance and managerial control. These > findings provide a socio-technical account of algorithmic management that > challenges technological determinism, highlighting the labour embedded in > supposedly automated processes. Francisca Gutiérrez Crocco holds a PhD in Sociology from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. She currently works as a professor at the Universidad Austral de Chile and as a researcher at the Millennium Nucleus for the Evolution of Work. She has led several research projects on labour transformations in Latin America, funded by grants from the Chilean Research and Development Agency and other international organisations such as the Internet Society Foundation. She has also worked as a consultant for trade unions, the Chilean government, the ILO and ECLAC, among other organisations. Her work has been published in leading labour journals such as the International Labour Review, Work, Employment and Society and Employee Relations.

On 16-17 May 2025, DiPLab’s Paola Tubaro was invited by the French Institute in Argentina to participate in its landmark event “Night of Ideas.” At world-famous Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, she spoke in panels that provocatively questioned the “new voluntary servitude” of platform work and asked whether “in AI we trust?” On 20 May, she gave a talk on “The Future of Work and AI” at the prestigious University of Buenos Aires. She presented some results of her research on digital labor and its role in AI production, developed in the framework of the DiPLab research program. No Caption No Caption No Caption No Caption

The recent termination of Meta’s contract with Telus International in Barcelona—which resulted in over 2,000 content moderators losing their positions—prompted ESADE (Escuela Superior de Administración y Dirección de Empresas) to invite DiPLab co-founder Antonio Casilli to address the broader implications of this workforce disruption. The event was part of the kick-off for the DigitalWORK research project, which explores how digital technologies are transforming work and promoting fair, equitable and transparent labor conditions, with Anna Ginès i Fabrellas and Raquel Serrano Olivares (Universitat de Barcelona) as principal investigators.  The Barcelona layoffs represent more than just another corporate restructuring. For Casilli, they exemplify the precarious nature of digital labor that underpins the global AI and social media ecosystem. In his presentation, Casilli analyzes global labor arbitrage in AI production, discussing how companies like Meta leverage geographic wage differentials to reduce operational costs, with Barcelona serving as a mid-tier location between Silicon Valley headquarters and Global South outsourcing destinations. In the subsequent debate with ILO senior economist Uma Rani, Antonio Casilli also addresses potential regulatory responses and worker rights, exploring policy interventions to protect digital workers from arbitrary contract terminations and ensure fair compensation for data workers.

DiPLab researcher Paola Tubaro recently completed a research and outreach mission to Argentina, participating in multiple academic and policy events. This mission represents DiPLab’s continued commitment to international research collaboration and knowledge transfer. Through presentations to policy makers, academic audiences, and students, the trip facilitated the dissemination of DiPLab’s research on digital labor, platform economics, and AI governance to diverse stakeholders in the Argentine academic and policy communities. On May 12, Tubaro participated in the conference “Manipulación Informativa e Injerencia Extranjera: Desafíos Globales y Respuestas Democráticas,” organized by the European Union Delegation in Argentina in collaboration with several embassies, including France. In the panel “Cómo contrarrestar la desinformación respetando la libertad de expresión y el derecho a la información,” Tubaro presented research findings on the economic mechanisms underlying disinformation, specifically examining how advertising markets sustain false information dissemination across digital platforms. She addressed the regulatory challenges surrounding these markets and discussed the role of scientific research in developing evidence-based policy responses, referencing ongoing work within the EU-funded AI4TRUST project. On May 13, Tubaro delivered presentations on internet disinformation to journalism students at two Argentine institutions: Universidad Nacional de Avellaneda and Universidad Abierta Interamericana,. These sessions focused on the intersection of digital platforms, information verification, and journalistic practice in the contemporary media landscape. During May 16-17, Tubaro participated in three panels within the “Noche de las Ideas” program, an annual initiative of the French Institute held at Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. The 2024 theme was “El poder de actuar” (The Power to Act). Her contributions included: the opening session addressing the annual theme, a panel discussion “¿Nuevas servidumbres voluntarias? Jóvenes y precariedad” examining digital platform labor conditions and youth employment, and the panel “‘In A.I. we trust?’ Actuar con y en contra de las nuevas tecnologías” analyzing artificial intelligence governance and regulation On May 20, Tubaro presented “Universidad Nacional de Avellaneda y en la Universidad Abierta Interamericana,” (The Future of Work and AI) as part of the UBA Digital lecture series at Universidad de Buenos Aires. The presentation featured research findings from DiPLab’s ongoing investigation into digital labor and its role in artificial intelligence production systems. The session was hosted by the Faculty of Dentistry, which also provided a tour of their clinical facilities.

Our DiPLab seminar will welcome this May 23, 2025, at 5 PM CET, Professor Evan Selinger (Rochester Institute of Technology) for a talk and an interesting discussion, together with Antonio Casilli. The seminar will be held at Maison de la Recherche, 28 Rue Serpente, 75006 Paris, room D421. To register, click on the button below and fill out the form. The seminar is free to attend. Register to seminar MACHINES THAT MIRROR US: THE HUMAN COST OF AI “WITH A SOUL” > In a recent podcast, Mark Zuckerberg claimed that “the average American has > fewer than three friends” and that people “demand meaningfully more.” These > unverified assertions conveniently support Meta’s latest initiative: a new > range of products that complement each person’s social friend network with AI > chatbots. > Meta is not alone in commercially capitalizing on the growing narrative of a > “loneliness epidemic.” Other tech giants are following suit, with Google > preparing to release AI chatbots for users under 13. These rollouts coincide > with a time when AI systems—long capable of passing the Turing Test—not > through advanced intelligence but by convincingly impersonating human > characters like teens or children, complete with backstories, humor, and > preferences, showing that relatability, not intellect, often drives their > success in human interaction. > What does it mean when machines are built not to surpass us, but to mirror us? > Are we diluting the meaning of “humanity” by outsourcing it to algorithms? > Some recent tragedies—such as the reported suicides of individuals in Europe > and the US after interactions with emotionally manipulative chatbots—raise > urgent ethical questions. > Yet there’s another side. These technologies, by mimicking humanity, also > provoke reflection on what cannot be simulated: our capacity for empathy, > care, and authentic connection. As the Roman philosopher Terence wrote, “Homo > sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto”—”I am human, and nothing human is alien > to me.” Might our interactions with AI deepen our understanding of what > remains distinctly human? > In this talk, philosopher Evan Selinger, in conversation with sociologist > Antonio Casilli, explores what he calls the “soul” in the machine—that > irreducible human essence no algorithm can capture. This presentation aims to > provide participants with ethical tools to recognize emotional manipulation, > navigate emerging moral dilemmas, and preserve human authenticity in an > increasingly synthetic world. Drawing on Selinger’s book Re-Engineering > Humanity (Cambridge University Press, 2018), they will examine how the real > threat isn’t hyper-intelligent AI, but the seductive ease of one-sided > relationships with machines—and the corporate drive to monetize these > interactions by harvesting data and maximizing profit. Evan Selinger is Professor of Philosophy at Rochester Institute of Technology, specializing in technology ethics and privacy. His recent books include Move Slow and Upgrade (with Albert Fox Cahn) and Re-Engineering Humanity (with Brett Frischmann), both from Cambridge University Press. Selinger writes for The Boston Globe and has contributed to major publications including The New York Times, The Guardian, Wired, and The Atlantic. He collaborates with organizations like the ACLU and the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project to shape responsible technology policy. >

When Robots Don’t Show Up. Organizing the real workforce behind automation is the title of the webinar that DiPLab’s Antonio Casilli gave at ETUI (European Trade Union Institute) on April 16, 2025. Part of the AI Talks series, the webinar was an online conversation with Aida Ponce Del Castillo, Senior researcher @ ETUI > Antonio A. Casilli’s new book “Waiting for Robots: The Hired Hands of > Automation” (University of Chicago Press, 2025) exposes how automated > technologies depend on vast networks of outsourced and invisibilized human > labor. In his research, he documents how platform workers, micro-taskers, and > everyday users provide the essential input that makes AI systems function. > Casilli argues that automation narratives serve to fragment and devalue labor > while obscuring human contribution. Featured in Science, MIT Technology > Review, and selected as a Top Science Pick by the journal Nature, his work > offers union organizers practical approaches to identifying and mobilizing the > dispersed workforce behind digital platforms and AI systems. This presentation > will address urgent questions about worker rights, working conditions, and > collective action in a future where robots perpetually fail to arrive.