Pre-Automation: Insourcing and Automating the Gig Economy

Janet A. Vertesi; Adam Goldstein; Diana Enriquez; Larry Liu; Katherine T. Miller

doi:10.6092/issn.1971-8853/11657

Authors

Janet A. Vertesi Sociology Department, Princeton University https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4579-6252

Janet Vertesi is Associate Professor of Sociology at Princeton University, with expertise in science and technology studies, sociology of organizations, and human-computer interaction. Her ethnographic studies of human-robot collaborations in the workplace include the books Shaping Science (Chicago, 2020) and Seeing Like a Rover (2014), focusing on NASA’s robotic spacecraft missions. She is an advisory member of the Data and Society Institute and faculty affiliate at Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy.
Adam Goldstein Sociology Department, Princeton University https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1127-3541

Adam Goldstein is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs and Ralph O. Glendinning University Preceptor at Princeton University.
Diana Enriquez Sociology Department, Princeton University https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6254-5503

Diana Enriquez is a PhD candidate in Sociology at Princeton University. Her dissertation research focuses on high-skill freelancers as a subset of the alternative workforce facing new challenges before and during COVID-19. Other research projects examine the role of platforms in managing gig workers and automation in the workplace. Her research interests include economic sociology, labor, law, and technology.
Larry Liu Sociology Department, Princeton University https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5558-1995

Larry Liu is a PhD student in Sociology at Princeton University. His interests are in political, economic and labor sociology. What are the causes and consequences of the automation of work? Present and past projects deal with the link between unions and robotization; the link between migrant labor and robotization; the link between labor protests and robotization; the link between labor shareholder investments/ proposals (pension funds) and worker outcomes; the work experiences of online gig workers; activism around universal basic income; the comparison of global cities. He completed an MSc (Comparative Social Policy) at the University of Oxford and a B.A. (Sociology, Economic Policy) at the University of Pennsylvania.
Katherine T. Miller Sociology Department, Princeton University https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3007-7861

Katherine Miller is an undergraduate researcher in Sociology at Princeton University. Her research interests include technology, culture and cultural production, and social networks. Current and past research projects focus on astrophysics, the intersection of technology and art, the influence of technology on perceptions of authenticity, and the organization of cultural production.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/11657

Keywords:

gig labor, platform capitalism, outsourcing, automation, imagined futures

Abstract

This paper examines a strategic configuration in the technology, logistics, and robotics industries that we call “pre-automation”: when emerging platform monopolies employ large, outsourced labor forces while simultaneously investing in developing the tools to replace these workers with in-house machines of their own design. In line with socioeconomic studies of imagined futures, we elaborate pre-automation as a strategic investment associated with a firm’s ambitions for platform monopoly, and consider Uber, Amazon Flex and Amazon Delivery Services Partnership Program drivers as paradigmatic cases. We attempt detection of firms' pre-automation strategies through analysis of patenting, hiring, funding and acquisition activity and highlight features of certain forms of gig work that lay the infrastructural foundations for future automation. We argue that certain forms of platform labor may be viewed dynamically as an intermediate arrangement that stages outsourced tasks for subsequent insourcing through automated technologies, and discuss the implications of this configuration for existing theories of outsourcing and technology-driven job displacement.

References

Abraham, K.G. (1990). Restructuring the Employment Relationship: The Growth of Market-Mediated Work Arrangements. In K.G. Abraham & R.B. McKersie. New Developments in the Labor Market: Toward a New Institutional Paradigm (pp. 85–119). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Abraham, K.G., Haltiwanger, J.C., Sandusky, K., & Spletzer, J.R. (2018). Measuring the Gig Economy: Current Knowledge and Open Issues. Working Paper No. 24950. National Bureau of Economic Research. https://doi.org/10.3386/w24950

Appelbaum, E., Bernhardt, A.D., & Murnane, R.J. (2006). Low-wage America: How Employers Are Reshaping Opportunity in the Workplace. New York: The Russell Sage Foundation.

Autor, D.H. (2015). Why Are There Still So Many Jobs? The History and Future of Workplace Automation. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 29(3), 3–30. https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.29.3.3

Bailey, D.E., & Leonardi, P.M. (2015). Technology Choices: Why Occupations Differ in Their Embrace of New Technology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Baran, P.A., & Sweezy, P. (1966). Monopoly Capital: An Essay on the American Economic and Social Order. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Barley, S.R. (1996). Technology as an Occasion for Structuring: Evidence from Observation of CT Scanners and the Social Order of Radiology Departments. Administrative Science Quarterly, 31(1), 78–108. https://doi.org/10.2307/2392767

Beckert, J. (2016). Imagined Futures. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Beckert, J., & Bronk, R. (Eds.). (2018). Uncertain Futures: Imaginaries, Narratives, and Calculation in the Economy (New product edition). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Berg, J., & Johnston, H. (2019). Too Good to Be True? A Comment on Hall and Krueger’s Analysis of the Labor Market for Uber’s Driver-Partners. ILR Review, 72(1), 39–68. https://doi.org/10.1177/0019793918798593

Berger, S. (2019). Amazon is paying employees $10,000 and 3 months’ salary to quit and start their own business. CNBC, May 13. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/13/amazon-will-pay-employees-thousands-to-quit-and-become-business-owners.html

Bernhardt, A., Batt, R.L., Houseman, S., & Appelbaum, E. (2016). Domestic Outsourcing in the United States: A Research Agenda to Assess Trends and Effects on Job Quality. Upjohn Working Papers and Journal Articles, No. 16–253. W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. https://ideas.repec.org/p/upj/weupjo/16-253.html

Borup, M., Brown, N., Konrad, K., & Lente, H.V. (2006). The Sociology of Expectations in Science and Technology. Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, 18(3–4), 285–298. https://doi.org/10.1080/09537320600777002

Braverman, H. (1974). Labor and Monopoly Capital; The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Brayne, S., & Christin, A. (2020). Technologies of Crime Prediction: The Reception of Algorithms in Policing and Criminal Courts. Social Problems, spaa004. https://doi.org/10.1093/socpro/spaa004

Briken, K., Chillas, S., Krzywdzinski, M., & Marks, A. (2017). The New Digital Workplace: How New Technologies Revolutionize Work. London, UK: Red Globe Press.

Brown, N., Rappert, B., & Rappert, B. (2017). Introducing Contested Futures: From Looking into the Future to Looking at the Future. In N. Brown, B. Rappert (Eds.), Contested Futures (pp. 1–18). London, UK: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315259420-9

Brynjolfsson, E., & McAfee, A. (2011). Race Against the Machine: How the Digital Revolution Is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy. Lexington, MA: Digital Frontier Press.

Burawoy, M. (1979). Manufacturing Consent: Changes in the Labor Process under Monopoly Capitalism. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Bursztynsky, J. (2020). Uber sells its self-driving unit to Aurora. CNBC, December 7. . https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/07/uber-sells-atg-self-driving-unit-to-aurora-.html

Cappelli, P. (1999). The New Deal at Work: Managing the Market-driven Workforce. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

Chafkin, M. (2016). Uber Debuts Its First Fleet of Driverless Cars in Pittsburgh. Bloomberg.Com, August 18. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-08-18/uber-s-first-self-driving-fleet-arrives-in-pittsburgh-this-month-is06r7on

Chandler, A.D. (1977). The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.

Collins, B., Garin, A., Jackson, E., Koustas, D., & Payne, M. (2019). Is Gig Work Replacing Traditional Employment? Evidence from Two Decades of Tax Returns. Unpublished paper, IRS SOI Joint Statistical Research Program. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/19rpgigworkreplacingtraditionalemployment.pdf

Cutolo, D., & Kenney, M. (2019). The Emergence of Platform-Dependent Entrepreneurs: Power Assymetries, Risk and Uncertainty. BRIE Working paper, 2019–3. Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy, UC Berkeley. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3372560

Dahlbäck, N., Jönsson, A., & Ahrenberg, L. (1993). Wizard of Oz Studies: Why and How. Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces, 193–200. https://doi.org/10.1145/169891.169968

Davenport, T.H., & Kirby, J. (2016). Only Humans Need Apply: Winners and Losers in the Age of Smart Machines. New York: Harper Business.

Davis-Blake, A., & Broschak, J.P. (2009). Outsourcing and the Changing Nature of Work. Annual Review of Sociology, 35(1), 321–340. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.34.040507.134641

Delfanti, A., & Frey, B. (2020). Humanly Extended Automation or the Future of Work Seen through Amazon Patents. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 0162243920943665. https://doi.org/10.1177/0162243920943665

Deuten, J.J., & Rip, A. (2000). Narrative Infrastructure in Product Creation Processes. Organization, 7(1), 69–93. https://doi.org/10.1177/135050840071005

Dey, M., Houseman, S., & Polivka, A. (2010). What Do We Know About Contracting Out in the United States? Evidence from Household and Establishment Surveys. In K.G. Abraham, J.R. Spletzer, and M.J. Harper (Eds.), Labor in the New Economy (pp. 267–304). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

DiTomaso, N. (2001). The Loose Coupling of Jobs: The Subcontracting of Everyone? In I. Berg & A. Kalleberg (Eds.), Sourcebook of Labor Markets: Evolving Structures and Processes. Amsterdam: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.

Dubal, V. (2017). Wage Slave or Entrepreneur?: Contesting the Dualism of Legal Worker Identities. California Law Review, 105(101), UC Hastings Research Paper No. 176. https://ssrn.com/abstract=2796728

Ekbia, H.R., & Nardi, B.A. (2017). Heteromation, and Other Stories of Computing and Capitalism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Financial Times. (2020). Amazon lays off dozens of employees at drone programme. (November 20). https://www.ft.com/content/95cc17b6-88a5-47b0-a773-f247942a9a8f

Fligstein, N. (2001). The Architecture of Markets: An Economic Sociology of Twenty-First Century Capitalist Societies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Gray, M.L., & Suri, S. (2019). Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Hall, J.V., & Krueger, A.B. (2018). An Analysis of the Labor Market for Uber’s Driver-Partners in the United States. ILR Review, 71(3), 705–732. https://doi.org/10.1177/0019793917717222

Harris, M. (2019). Uber’s self-driving car unit was burning $20 million a month. TechCrunch, March 12. https://social.techcrunch.com/2019/03/12/ubers-self-driving-car-unit-was-burning-20-million-a-month/

Hirschman, A.O. (1977). The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism Before Its Triumph. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Irani, L. (2015). The Cultural Work of Microwork. New Media & Society, 17(5), 720–739. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444813511926

Irani, L., & Silberman, M.S. (2013). Turkopticon: Interrupting Worker Invisibility in Amazon Mechanical Turk. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems – CHI ’13, 611. https://doi.org/10.1145/2470654.2470742

Jasanoff, S., & Kim, S.-H. (Eds.). (2015). Dreamscapes of Modernity: Sociotechnical Imaginaries and the Fabrication of Power. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

Kalleberg, A.L. (2011). Good Jobs, Bad Jobs: The Rise of Polarized and Precarious Employment Systems in the United States, 1970s–2000s. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Kantor, J., & Streitfeld, D. (2015). Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace. The New York Times, August 15. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html

Kaplan, S., & Orlikowski, W.J. (2013). Temporal Work in Strategy Making. Organization Science, 24(4), 965–995. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1120.0792

Kässi, O., & Lehdonvirta, V. (2018). Online Labour Index: Measuring the Online Gig Economy for Policy and Research. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 137, 241–248. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2018.07.056

Katz, L.F., & Krueger, A.B. (2016). The Rise and Nature of Alternative Work Arrangements in the United States, 1995–2015. Working paper, No. 22667. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w22667/w22667.pdf

Kelley, J.F. (2018). Wizard of Oz (WoZ): A Yellow Brick Journey. Journal of Usability Studies, 13(3), 119–124.

Kellogg, K.C. (2009). Operating Room: Relational Spaces and Microinstitutional Change in Surgery. American Journal of Sociology, 115(3), 657–711. https://doi.org/10.1086/603535

Kellogg, K.C., Valentine, M.A., & Christin, A. (2019). Algorithms at Work: The New Contested Terrain of Control. Academy of Management Annals, 14(1), 366–410.https://doi.org/10.5465/annals.2018.0174

Kimchi, G., Isaacs, S., Navot, A., Beckman, B.C., Schaffalitzky, F., & Green, S.A. (2014). United States Patent Application: 20150277440, March 25.

Kling, R. (1991). Computerization and Social Transformations. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 16(3), 342–367. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F016224399101600304

Koustas, D.K. (2019). What Do Big Data Tell Us about Why People Take Gig Economy Jobs? AEA Papers and Proceedings, 109, 367–371. https://doi.org/10.1257/pandp.20191041

Kristal, T., & Cohen, Y. (2017). The Causes of Rising Wage Inequality: The Race between Institutions and Technology. Socio-Economic Review, 15(1), 187–212. https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mww006

Kunda, G., Barley, S.R., & Evans, J. (2002). Why Do Contractors Contract? The Experience of Highly Skilled Technical Professionals in a Contingent Labor Market. Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 55(2), 234–261. https://doi.org/10.2307/2696207

Lei, Y.-W. (forthcoming). Upgrading China through Automation: Manufacturers, Workers, and the Developmental State. Paper for Work, Employment and Society.

Levy, K.E.C. (2015). The Contexts of Control: Information, Power, and Truck-Driving Work. The Information Society, 31(2), 160–174. https://doi.org/10.1080/01972243.2015.998105

Lowensohn, J. (2015). Uber gutted Carnegie Mellon’s top robotics lab to build self-driving cars. The Verge, May 19. https://www.theverge.com/transportation/2015/5/19/8622831/uber-self-driving-cars-carnegie-mellon-poached

Marx, K. (2010). Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Translated by B. Fowkes. Madison Park, Seattle: Pacific Publishing Studio. (Original work published 1867).

Mazmanian, M., Orlikowski, W.J., & Yates, J. (2013). The Autonomy Paradox: The Implications of Mobile Email Devices for Knowledge Professionals. Organization Science, 24(5), 1337–1357. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1120.0806

Messeri, L., & Vertesi, J. (2015). The Greatest Missions Never Flown: Anticipatory Discourse and the “Projectory” in Technological Communities. Technology and Culture, 56(1), 54–85. https://doi.org/10.1353/tech.2015.0023

Meyer, M.W. (2001). What Happened to Middle Management? In I. Berg & A.L. Kalleberg (Eds.), Sourcebook of Labor Markets (pp. 449–466). Springer US.

Mindell, D.A. (2015). Our Robots, Ourselves: Robotics and the Myths of Autonomy. (Illustrated Edition). New York: Viking.

Molla, R. (2019). Amazon’s tiny profits, explained. Vox Recode, October 24. https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/8/21/20826405/amazons-profits-revenue-free-cash-flow-explained-charts

Navot, A., Beckman, B.C., Buchmueller, D., Kimchi, G., Hensel, F., Green, S.A., Porter, B.W., & Rault, S.S.J.-M. (2014). United States Patent Application: 20160196755, June 26.

Navot, A., Kimchi, G., Beckman, B.C., Schaffalitzky, F., Buchmueller, D., & Anderson, R.J. (2014). United States Patent Application: 20150379876, June 25.

Neff, G. (2012). Venture Labor: Work and the Burden of Risk in Innovative Industries. Boston, MA: MIT Press.

Occhiuto, N. (2017). Investing in Independent Contract Work: The Significance of Schedule Control for Taxi Drivers. Work and Occupations, 44(3), 268–295. https://doi.org/10.1177/0730888417697231

Padgett, J.F., & Ansell, C.K. (1993). Robust Action and the Rise of the Medici, 1400-1434. American Journal of Sociology, 98(6), 1259–1319. https://doi.org/10.1086/230190

Pinch, T., & Bijker, W.E. (1987). The Social Construction of Facts and Artifacts: Or How the Sociology of Science and the Sociology of Technology Might Benefit Each Other. In T. Pinch, W.E. Bijker, & T.P. Hughes (Eds.), The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology (pp.17–50). Boston, MA: MIT Press.

Ravenelle, A.J. (2019). Hustle and Gig: Struggling and Surviving in the Sharing Economy. San Diego, CA: University of California Press.

Roberts, S.T. (2019). Behind the Screen: Content Moderation in the Shadows of Social Media. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press.

Rosenblat, A. (2018). Uberland: How Algorithms Are Rewriting the Rules of Work. San Diego, CA: University of California Press.

Sachs, S.E. (2020). The Algorithm at Work? Explanation and Repair in the Enactment of Similarity in Art Data. Information, Communication & Society, 23(11), 1689–1705. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2019.1612933

Schwartz, D. (2018). Embedded in the Crowd: Creative Freelancers, Crowdsourced Work, and Occupational Community. Work and Occupations, 45(3), 247–282. https://doi.org/10.1177/0730888418762263

Seaver, N. (2019). Knowing Algorithms. In J. Vertesi, D. Ribes, C. DiSalvo, Y. Loukissas, L. Forlano, D.K. Rosner, S.J. Jackson, & H.R. Shell (Eds.), digitalSTS (pp. 412–422). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Sellen, A.J., & Harper, R.H.R. (2003). The Myth of the Paperless Office. Boston, MA: MIT Press.

Shestakofsky, B. (2017). Working Algorithms: Software Automation and the Future of Work. Work and Occupations, 44(4), 376–423. https://doi.org/10.1177/0730888417726119

Shestakofsky, B., & Kelkar, S. (2020). Making Platforms Work: Relationship Labor and the Management of Publics. Theory and Society. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-020-09407-z

Srnicek, N. (2017). Platform Capitalism. Cambridge, UK: Polity.

Stark, D. (1980). Class Struggle and the Transformation of the Labor Process. Theory and Society, 9(1), 89–130. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00158894

Statt, N. (2019). Amazon is delivering half its own packages as it becomes a serious rival to FedEx and UPS. The Verge, December 13. https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/13/21020938/amazon-logistics-prime-air-fedex-ups-package-delivery-more-than-50-percent

Taylor, M. (2017). Good Work: The Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices. Independent Report. Gov.uk. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/good-work-the-taylor-review-of-modern-working-practices

Uber Technologies. (2019). United States Securities and Exchange Commission Form S-1 Registration Statement. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1543151/000119312519103850/d647752ds1.htm

Vallas, S., & Schor, J.B. (2020). What Do Platforms Do? Understanding the Gig Economy. Annual Review of Sociology, 46(1), 273–294. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-121919-054857

Viscelli, S. (2018). Driverless? Autonomous Trucks and the Future of the American Trucker. UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education and Working Parnerships USA. http://driverlessreport.org/

Volkoff, O., Strong, D.M., & Elmes, M.B. (2007). Technological Embeddedness and Organizational Change. Organization Science, 18(5), 832–848. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1070.0288

Wang, P., Sibi, S., Mok, B., & Ju, W. (2017). Marionette: Enabling On-Road Wizard-of-Oz Autonomous Driving Studies. Proceedings of the 2017 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, 234–243. https://doi.org/10.1145/2909824.3020256

Weil, D. (2014). The Fissured Workplace: Why Work Became So Bad for So Many and What Can Be Done to Improve It. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Wilkinson, A., & Barry, M. (2020). The Future of Work and Employment. Cheltenham: Elgar. https://www.elgaronline.com/view/edcoll/9781786438249/9781786438249.xml

Zuboff, S. (2018). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. New York: PublicAffairs.

Pre-Automation: Insourcing and Automating the Gig Economy

Authors

DOI:

Keywords:

Abstract

References

Downloads

Published

How to Cite

Issue

Section

License

Information

Make a Submission

Keywords

Current Issue