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Cited by 367Digital Economy and Work TransformationLegal and Labor StudiesEmployment, Labor, and Gender Studies

Difference and Dependence among Digital Workers: The Case of Amazon Mechanical Turk

Open access
Irani, Lilly·2015·South Atlantic Quarterly
DOI 10.1215/00382876-2831665
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Abstract

Digitally mediated labor can take many forms: valorized and visible, hidden and forgotten, or even disavowed. This article examines one particular digital work system: Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT). AMT is a system that organizes tens of thousands of workers to do data-processing work; workers might contract with hundreds of employers in a year without ever meeting them. Employers, likewise, can access these workers through computer interfaces without ever interacting with them. I examine the AMT-mediated computational labor relations between technologist employers and the data-processing workers who work for them. In systems such as AMT, some people are employers, entrepreneurs, and programmers, and others simulate computation for them. The subjectivities of valorized workers are dependent on employing and distancing the labor of AMT workers. I take up these relations of dependency and disavowal as symptomatic of emerging forms and stakes of digital work.

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  • Irani and Gray and Suri find that behind the growing capabilities of Artificial Intelligence are millions of human decisions and hours of labor.

    “Irani (2015a) and Gray and Suri (2019) also find that behind the growing capabilities of Artificial Intelligence are millions of human decisions and hours of labor.”

    From Dependence and precarity in the platform economy (2020) · cites this paper as Irani (2015a)

    In “Transforming People into ‘Human Computation’” (page unavailable), Irani describes workers performing data-processing tasks whose outputs feed computer systems; the Conclusion (page unavailable) emphasizes that this labor is kept out of sight. The paper supports the underlying point about human labor behind computational services, but it does not establish millions of decisions or hours of labor, or make a general finding about the growing capabilities of AI. (LLM, conf=0.84)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • Human management remains important even in the most digitized or algorithmically-managed applications.

    “Another important finding in this literature is the extent to which human management remains important, even in the most digitized or algorithmically-managed applications.”

    From Dependence and precarity in the platform economy (2020) · cites this paper as Irani (2015a)

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Cites

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Research works printed but not linked: 11

  1. Benkler, Yochai. 2006. The Wealth of Networks. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
  2. Blanchette, Jean François. 2011. "A Material History of Bits." Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 62, no. 6: 1042-57.
  3. Braverman, John. 1998. Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twenti- eth Century. New York: Monthly Review.
  4. Castells, Manuel. 2000. The Rise of the Network Society. Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell.
  5. Downey, Greg. 2014. "Making Media Work: Time, Space, Identity, and Labor in Analysis of Information and Communication Infrastructures." In Media Technologies: Essays on Communication, Materiality, and Society, edited by Tarleton Gillespie, Pablo Bocz- kowski, and Kristen Foot, 141-66. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  6. Gieryn, Thomas. 1983. "Boundary-Work and the Demarcation of Science from Non-Science: Strains and Interests in Professional Ideologies of Scientists." American Sociological Review 48: 781-95.
  7. Martin, David, et al. 2014. "Being A Turker." In CSCW '14: Proceedings of the 17th ACM Con- ference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, Baltimore, Feb- ruary 15-19. New York: ACM.
  8. Nakamura, Lisa, and Donna Haraway. 2003. "Prospects for a Materialist Informatics: An Interview with Donna Haraway." Electronic Book Review. www.electronicbookreview .com/thread/technocapitalism/interview
  9. Nakano Glenn, Evelyn. 1985. "Racial Ethnic Women's Labor: The Intersection of Race, Gen- der, and Class Oppression." Review of Radical Political Economics 17, no. 3: 86-108.
  10. Schmidt, Kjeld. 2011. Cooperative Work and Coordinative Practices. London: Springer.
  11. Scholz, Trebor. 2012. Digital Labor: The Internet as Playground and Factory. New York: Routledge.

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Authors
Irani, L.
Corresponding author
Irani, Lilly
ORCID
Irani, Lilly
Venue
South Atlantic Quarterly
Publisher
Duke University Press
Published
2015-01-01
Volume
114
Issue
1
Pages
225-234
ISSN
  • 0038-2876 (ISSN-L)
  • 1527-8026
DOI
10.1215/00382876-2831665
OpenAlex
W2100232516
Cited by
367
References
2
Citations by year
2026: 22 · 2025: 52 · 2024: 46 · 2023: 30 · 2022: 50 · 2021: 25 · 2020: 43 · 2019: 34 · 2018: 28 · 2017: 18 · 2016: 13 · 2015: 5
FWCI
70.61
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • South Atlantic Quarterly (publishedVersion)
  • eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Digital Economy and Work Transformation
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Industrial relations › Legal and Labor Studies
  • Social Sciences › Safety Research › Employment, Labor, and Gender Studies
Keywords
Amazon Mechanical Turk, digital labor, labor relations, worker subjectivity, dependency, disavowal, platform work

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