Waiting for the Robots. Guest Talk with Antonio Casilli

When ChatGPT launched in November 2022, it sparked predictions of a revolutionary transformation in how we live and work. Yet just months later, when TIME Magazine exposed African workers training the chatbot by annotating toxic data for less than two dollars per hour, public interest barely stirred. Even today, as evidence mounts of millions of hidden workers performing essential data tasks worldwide, investors and pundints cling to myths about artificial general intelligence and the imminent displacement of human labor.

The title "Waiting for Robots" echoes Beckett's famous play, highlighting how complete automation remains forever just out of reach, like the elusive character Godot. Casilli's research reveals this isn't simply a technical hurdle – it's built into the system. Automation can never be complete, and intelligence can never be purely artificial because they depend on human labor that's deliberately unrecognized and undervalued.

While other important works have exposed exploitation in the Majority World, this book adds a crucial dimension. It uncovers an underlying thread linking our everyday online activities to a vast network of digital labor. Every time we scroll through social media or chat with AI, we become part of a global workforce: content moderators working for minimal wages, gig workers on digital platforms, and millions of unwitting AI trainers – including ourselves – who contribute through daily online routines.

Highlighting the findings of his research team across Africa, Latin America, and Europe, the author maps this hidden landscape where human input remains crucial to "automated" systems. His findings challenge the notion that AI will replace workers. Instead, it's creating new forms of labor that often go unrecognized and unrewarded. Following the success of its first French edition, this English version from University of Chicago Press uses up-to-the-minute research to bring fresh insights on recent developments in AI and labor. Automation concerns are growing, but there is a clear path forward: rather than fear that robots will replace our jobs, we must recognize and value the human labor that powers our digital world. Technology can serve human needs rather than exploit labor by powering alternatives such as worker-run cooperatives, digital commons, and redistributive income models.

About the Author

Antonio Casilli is a Professor of Sociology at Institut Polytechnique de Paris and a member of the CNRS Interdisciplinary Institute on Innovation. His research focuses on digital labor, AI workers' rights, and platform capitalism. His influential publications have been translated into several languages. His latest book, originally published in French as "En attendant les robots" (Seuil, 2019), has been published ni English by the University of Chicago Press as "Waiting for Robots" (2025). He has co-founded several international initiatives, including the research program DiPLab (Digital Platform Labor) and INDL (International Network on Digital Labor).