Technologies are transforming work and worker experiences, shifting labor visibility and power across occupations. These disruptions on labor visibility—especially for workers already vulnerable positions—raise critical concerns and implications for the future of work.

Our one-day, in-person workshop aims to discuss some of these novel challenges around visibility and labor induced by technology by weaving together academic insights and on-ground realities. We will start with lightning talks from local experts from labor organizations, nonprofits, and universities in Costa Rica. The experts will discuss their experiences and challenges working with, around, or against technology deployments in the Costa Rican workforce, including its impacts on local workers and communities. Building on their shared experiences, the workshop attendees will engage in ideation and design sessions to conceptualize existing challenges and explore potential solutions. Finally, at the end of the workshop, we will report back the key points to the local experts and to the broader academic community.

Workshop Themes

1. Situating technology-mediated labor (in)visibility in neighboring disciplines

A range of research communities–--from economics to sociology---have long studied the (in)visibility and (de)valuation of different forms of labor. How can we build on theories and empirical work from adjacent fields, to understand how technology may interplay with (in)visible labor?

2. Charting the multi-dimensionality of technology-mediated (in)visibility

With AI deployments impacting a wide range of workplaces, it’s critical to identify how their impacts may differ across workplace contexts, specifically for low-resource settings or otherwise underserved workers. How do the mechanisms of technology-mediated (in)visibility, as well as their impacts on workers, differ across occupations, locations, and identities (including in the Global North/South)? Where and why do workers providing certain forms of labor endure disproportionate harm from increased (in)visibility with the deployment of new technologies? How does this challenge worker resilience and how do workers react or resist these changes?

3. Anticipating and re-envisioning how technology and labor interplay over time

This third theme first prompts reflection around historical trends in how technologies have been impacting labor (in)visibility and (de)valuation in the past decades. We build on this reflection to anticipate how the interplay between technology and worker labor will continue to evolve in the future, with new waves of technologies and forms of worker labor: Are workers who provide newer forms of labor (e.g., data labeling, gig work, software engineering) versus traditional forms of labor (e.g., care work, teaching) impacted by technology innovations in different ways? How are new forms of technologies (e.g., generative AI technologies) impacted by, and impacting, the (de)valuation and (in)visbility of labor? What dynamics are not new, and how can we improve trends in how technology and worker labor interplay?

4. Designing technology and policy to improve the impacts on and of technology-mediated (in)visibility

The final theme of the workshop focuses on translating the newly developed understanding around technology-mediated work (in)visibility (from themes 1 - 3) into actionable interventions, in collaboration with impacted stakeholders. How can we improve technology design and evaluation practices to mitigate the negative impacts of technology-mediated (in)visibility, and positively reconfigure the relationship between labor and technology? What is the role of policy and regulatory interventions in mediating the interplay between technology and worker (in)visibility? How can HCI researchers situate themselves to best inform the design of new policies and interventions?

For more information about the workshop, please read the full workshop proposal.

Sunday November 10th, 2024.