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Post by fannie on Apr 26, 2016 4:44:00 GMT
Judy brings up an interesting point with the creative work that people have value in, but I think it’s hard to say that the type of work that people want crowdworkers to do will fall under those kinds of categories that bring up some personal gain (that is not money). But I think there’s also the case where if crowdworkers work on more creative problems, then the creativity or value in the people who posed and are trying to solve the problem is also questioned. I like what Cole said about viewing them more as consultants, rather than microtask workers, because their role makes more sense/is more valued in the bigger picture of getting support to solve a problem. Maybe viewing and forming “microtasks” as “subproblems” rather than tasks to just get over with would help push towards that kind of future.
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Post by rushil on Apr 26, 2016 5:30:10 GMT
Are you convinced by the authors that crowd work can be positive for both requesters and workers?Last week Uber settled with California and Massachusetts drivers agreeing to pay $100 million dollars to 350,000 workers. The drivers' status will remain as independent contractors—ahem crowdworkers. Each worker will get approximately $250. Uber will create "drivers' associations" and appeals processes, but these will not include collective bargaining. This has been hailed as a significant victory for Uber as it doesn't threaten Uber's core business strategy of depriving people who work for them of paid time off and retirement accounts (I'm biased). Reading this paper with the backdrop of this news, I'm struck at how the details crowdworkers' futures are not in the hands of HCI researchers. Suggesting that gamification of career or adding in learning opportunities will make crowdsourcing a career I'd be happy that my future children have is laughable. None of us reading this thread would be happy with these careers and we're hypocrites for asking anyone else to have this insecure, badly paying life. This paper was written in 2013, three years ago. I don't blame the researchers for not seeing how quickly economics would influence the adoption of crowdsourcing. So what should HCI be doing? First, realize and reckon with the fact that crowdsourcing is another step in a long process of using technology to weaken the security of workers for the sake of greater profits/efficiency. After that, I think HCI should consider how to design for collective action, how to design in the face of economic disparity, how to design in a context where companies that harness crowdsourced work are at a large advantage above their workers. Crowdsourcing is becoming a wide-spread method of production. Understanding how we might counter it, not just make it better, is something HCI should be thinking about. We all live in Pittsburgh. At Carnegie Steel's height, Pittsburgh was its company town. When workers tried to unionize in 1892, the Homestead Steel Strike commenced which ended with 12 killed and over 20 wounded. The unionizers lost. The tension between "requesters" and "workers" is an old one, and HCI's decision to think only in terms of interesting research and ignore historical struggles makes it more likely to contribute to a future that no one wants to live in. Interesting point. I'll be the devil's advocate here. Sure, Uber deprives them of paid time off and retirement accounts, but it also counters it with providing them advanced knowledge of "surplus" money. Each week the drivers are sent out a schedule of "high surge" rates where they are paid a minimum wage of $XX, if they drive within those time periods and accept 90% of their rides. This allows Uber drivers to pick the hours that would make the most money for them, if they choose so. The very idea of "paid time off" brings a notion of responsibility upon the worker, which is not the model Uber operates on. The workers are free to work or leave at any time they want to. This independence is why "paid time off" doesn't make sense in such a scenario. Also, situations where "Uber model" is not successful yet (mainly developing countries), Uber does switch between the models. It pays drivers a base salary per month which essentially includes paid time off, since you still make the base salary if you are an "active" driver but are not driving the traditional full time of 40 hour / week. It sustains on this strategy till Uber becomes popular and then it switches to the model you currently see in the US. Does that make Uber tons of money? Hell yes. Does it make the workers money? Absolutely. Does it provide all the benefits of a traditional job? No it doesn't, but there is a reason Uber has largely monopolized this industry. |
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Post by Anna on Apr 26, 2016 5:31:16 GMT
mkery: "While these remarks may seem on the paranoid end of things, I feel HCI has the need to be paranoid about these considerations as a field driving crowdsourcing research." Yes, agreed. In terms of how dystopic the future of crowd work will be: Online crowd work can in some respects be considered an extension of capitalism/industrialization/assembly lines. Instead of physical products, we're now talking about the production of digital goods and services. We can look to the developing world, and we can look to inequality within the 'developed' world, and we can see how capitalism has failed in so many respects. But I wonder if that's where crowd work might actually provide some hope in changing global poverty dynamics, given that it doesn't really require a lot of physical infrastructure aside from internet connection (which is no small feat in some developing countries...but the global situation has already changed a lot in terms of mobile phone access/internet use). And perhaps in some respects, a future where crowdworking jobs are highly common would allow workers to have more control over their situation (?), at least as compared to sweatshops. I wonder too how such a future would affect international relations and labor laws. Eg mkery's point about minimum wages-- how does that then affect international policies/uses around crowdwork? I also think there will be movements against crowdsourcing in the future (thinking back to other readings for this week and our discussions of dystopian crowdsourced futures). E.g. in the same way that artisanal and handcrafted goods are now highly valued, goods and services that enable or are engendered through individual-powered work will be highly valued in the future.
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Post by xuwang on Apr 26, 2016 11:01:40 GMT
I agree with what’s being said by the author that creating career ladders and facilitate turkers to learn new skills is important. I think this kind of connects crowd workers to freelance workers. Freelance workers are those who have expertise on one area, I like the idea of creating a system that allows for evolving jobs that crowd workers can move up through. For example, if crowd workers develop expertise though doing tasks, for example editing, then they could probably get some credential or certificate on that skill which will allow them to do more complicated tasks which are better paid. I wonder whether there are any evaluation on the connection of crowd platforms with real job markets, whether practice/participation in crowd platforms end up helping people find jobs.
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Post by Amy on Apr 28, 2016 13:19:44 GMT
Also trying to play devil's advocate a little bit here...
Looking at the author's design goal of having the future crowd systems focus on learning/teaching crowd workers, could you imagine using crowd work jobs to learn a new skill? You could learn one piece of the new skill at a time, almost like night classes, where you are paid to learn. This could help people advance their careers, find new traditional jobs, etc. This is related to Xu's post on gaining credentials by doing crowdworking tasks. It's a way to be paid to practice a skill you are developing.
I disagree with the authors - I don't understand why we should try to make the benefits of crowdworking jobs equal to the benefits of traditional jobs. I think we can have beneficial crowd worker/requestor relationships without trying to make crowdworking a career.
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Post by mrivera on Apr 29, 2016 14:52:13 GMT
RE: "I don't like to think of it as gamification, because that term seems to convey a sense of "empty value". If this career path is not providing crowd workers with autonomy and actual fulfillment, then it's done incorrectly." I think the point that we sometimes do things for work that don't provide real fulfillment to us can invalidate the claim of this sort of work being done incorrectly. There are plenty of people who do work and on't care much about what they are doing, only that they make money to do the things they actually want to do  |
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