Julie Chen and Alessandro Delfanti Launch New Book on Digital Labour
ICCIT professors Julie Chen and Alessandro Delfanti are celebrating the launch of their new book, Notes Toward a Digital Workers' Inquiry. This book was co-authored with other members of The Capacitor Collective, a research collective dedicated to digital worker inquiry and organization that includes Enda Brophy, Brian Dolber, Lilly Irani, and Tamara Kneese.
Notes Toward a Digital Workers' Inquiry includes first-hand accounts from the tech sector’s resurgent labour movement as artificial intelligence gains ground in every facet of our lives:
As tech billionaires align with Trump, they are also launching a renewed assault on labour through artificial intelligence and alienating tactics. But for now, it still takes workers to make fortunes for the bosses, and collective action is again on the rise. The rank and file are now coming from precarious new "gig jobs" and drawing strength from a class of worker who does what computers still cannot. Previously thought to be "unorganizable," these workers are part of a North American movement that is reaffirming faith in collective revolutionary action through new methods of organizing, new ways of association, and a new synthesis of traditional labour activities with original research.
A book launch will be held in Toronto on Thursday, February 12th at 7:00pm at Friends House, hosted by the Leo Panitch School for Socialist Education and the Digital Labour Working Group at the University of Toronto. All are invited to hear directly from the contributors to discuss what lessons can be taken forward by activist-researchers, organizers, and workers alike.
