“Ours is a world flooded by tech 'solutions' to problems of access, performance, and standardization, one that touts its cost savings and drives for efficiency, even as it relies on invisible hoards of low-paid workers to train machine learning bots while courting bias and discrimination.”
Allison Pugh is Professor of Sociology at John Hopkins University in Washington DC. She studies the way people find connection, meaning and dignity at work and in life.
The Last Human Job explores the construct of connective labour – the often subconscious and mostly unrewarded work people do to help others feel seen and heard. Of most obvious value in the teaching, medical and caring professions, persistently dismal global engagement data suggests far more could be done in most workplaces to imbue a sense of community and belonging.
Yet Pugh’s research goes farther than advocating for the intrinsic value of connective labour. She also highlights the extent to which it is imperilled by technophiles who conceive of it as something to systematise and automate. And therein lies the dilemma. Until we socialise the value of connective labour, it’s hard to ringfence it. Yet protect it we must – because the alternative, a future where the best that can be hoped for is care services provided by algorithm, is not one worth considering.
