可见、遮蔽与调适:“幽灵劳工”的社会技术想象及其纠偏
Visibility, Concealment, and Adaptation: Sociotechnical Imaginaries of “Ghost Workers” and Their Rectification:A Case Study of Data Annotators
伴随人工智能的深度应用,技术与劳动的结合更加紧密,辅助技术介入劳动已经成为当下劳动市场的重要变革。作为智能技术系统中的“幽灵劳工”,数据标注员在社会技术想象中逐渐“被看见”。对微博平台“数据标注员”话题下的原创发帖分析发现,社会行动者从待遇、身份、未来三个层面建构了标注员的职业想象,赋予该职业以积极意义。深度访谈发现,数据标注员在劳动场域中受到线上流水线工作模式、系统算法控制和劳动分层的影响;面对想象与现实间的偏差,数据标注员通过再技能化、去平台化与个体脱域三种策略完成对主流社会想象的自我纠偏。
With the deepening application of artificial intelligence, the integration of technology and labor has become even closer, and the intervention of assistive technology in labor has emerged as an important transformation in the labor market. As “ghost workers” within the intelligent technology system, data annotators have gradually become “visible” within sociotechnical imaginaries. However, the various dimensions of labor visibility do not fluctuate as a unified whole.
This paper focuses on data annotators as the subjects of investigation,aiming to dissect the multifaceted impact of social actors’ occupational imaginaries on the various dimensions of labor visibility. Through text analysis of original posts under the topic of “data annotators” on the Weibo platform, this paper explores the types of occupational imaginaries constructed by social actors for the group of data annotators and identifies which dimensions of labor visibility are emphasized. Moreover, this study uses in-depth interviews to discover whether there are discrepancy between the occupational imaginaries of data annotators and their actual work practices, thus revealing which dimensions of labor visibility are obscured and how data annotators strategically cope with these discrepancies.
Text analysis reveals that social actors bestow positive significance upon this profession, constructing occupational imaginaries that encompass three dimensions: the direct imagination of flexible employment, the identity imagination of digital white-collar workers, and the future imagination of technological revolution. Together, these dimensions shape the public’s cognitive framework for data annotators, highlighting the visibility dimension of market demand, professional reputation and social contribution for this professional group.
In-depth interviews reveal that these visions ignore the complexity and challenges of the daily work of data annotators. Upon entering the data anotation industry, workers face tasks involving the processing of unstructured data, which exposes them to the raw nature of machine learning. They also find themselves managed by algorithmic control and subject to labor stratification. Confronted with the discrepancies between imagination and reality, data annotators employ three strategies:“reskilling”,“deplatformization”and “individual disembedding”—to self-rectify the mainstream sociotechnical imaginaries.
Utilizing the theoretical tools of sociotechnical imaginaries, this paper seeks to examine, in greater detail, the “explicit” and “implicit” dimensions of labor visibility in the case of “ghost workers” under the broad context of labor visibility control mechanisms. An in-depth understanding of the obscured work practices of data annotators is conducive to prompting the society to re-examine and adjust the imagination of relevant technological applications and career development, thus facilitating the formulation of more rational career planning and labor policies.
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人力资源社会保障部办公厅,市场监管总局办公厅,统计局办公室.关于发布智能制造工程技术人员等职业信息的通知[EB/OL](2020-02-25)
人力资源社会保障部办公厅,市场监管总局办公厅,统计局办公室.关于发布智能制造工程技术人员等职业信息的通知[EB/OL](2024-06-10)
https://www.mohrss.gov.cn/xxgk2020/fdzdgknr/rcrs_4225/jnrc/202112/t20211227_431388.html
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