Related Publications [6]
Climate Justice and Labor Rights | Part II: Labor Organizing and Environmental Justice in Tech, Past and Present
Aug 3, 2023
Climate Justice and Labor Rights | Part I: AI Supply Chains and Workflows
Aug 2, 2023
Automated Firing & Algorithmic Management: Mounting a Resistance, with Veena Dubal, Zephyr Teachout and Zubin Soleimany | AI Now Salons
Jul 20, 2023
Algorithmic Management: Restraining Workplace Surveillance
Apr 11, 2023
A New AI Lexicon: Labor
Sep 23, 2021
How Tech Workers Can Blow the Whistle
Mar 4, 2021
Related Press [10]
Fearing AI will take their jobs, California workers plan a long battle against tech
“Labor has been at the forefront of rebalancing of power and asserting that the public has a say in determining how and under what conditions this tech is used."
CalMatters
Jan 16, 2025
How Walmart, Delta, Chevron and Starbucks are using AI to monitor employee messages
“No company is essentially in a position to make any sweeping assurances about the privacy and security of LLMs and these kinds of systems,” Kak said. “There is no one who can tell you with a straight face that these challenges are solved.”
CNBC
Feb 9, 2024
America Already Has an AI Underclass
She and others argue that tech companies intentionally downplay the importance of human feedback. Such obfuscation “sockets away some of the most unseemly elements of these technologies,” such as hateful content and misinformation that humans have to identify, Myers West told me—not to mention the conditions the people work under.
The Atlantic
Jul 26, 2023
Why use of AI is a major sticking point in the ongoing writers’ strike
“The WGA’s demands are a bellwether that workers don’t intend to stand for companies using AI to justify devaluation of their craft and expertise,” says Sarah Myers West at the AI Now Institute in New York. “The WGA is pointing out an important question – who is benefiting from the development and use of these systems, and who is harmed by them?”
New Scientist
May 15, 2023
Column: Your boss wants AI to replace you. The writers’ strike shows how to fight back
The AI Now Institute, a consortium of AI researchers and policy experts, recently published a report that concluded the AI industry is “foundationally reliant on resources that are owned and controlled by only a handful of big tech firms.” Its power is extremely concentrated in Silicon Valley, among giants such as Google and Meta, and that is where the economic benefits are all but certain to accrue.
LA Times
May 11, 2023
The Writers Strike Is Taking a Stand on AI
“It’s not so much about what AI is going to do, but what companies are going to use AI to justify,” says Myers West.
Time
May 4, 2023
What Really Happened When Google Ousted Timnit Gebru
Meredith Whittaker, faculty director of New York University’s AI Now Institute, predicts that there will be a clearer split between work done at institutions like her own and work done inside tech companies. “What Google just said to anyone who wants to do this critical research is, ‘We’re not going to tolerate it,’” she says.
Wired
Jun 8, 2021
Video – Whistleblower Aid & AI Now: How Tech Workers Can Blow the Whistle Workshop
Ifeoma Ozoma, Veena Dubal, Meredith Whittaker from the AI Now Institute and John Tye from Whistleblower Aid for a tech-worker focused webinar, covering the basics of safe whistleblowing and your rights as a worker.
Mar 25, 2021
Here’s What Happens When an Algorithm Determines Your Work Schedule
“Worse yet, corporate secrecy is a structural characteristic of the AI industry in general that undermines our ability to assess the full extent of how the technology is being used and hinders redress, oversight, and regulation.”
Vice
Feb 24, 2020
The Great Google Revolt
The discovery that their employer was working hand in hand with the Defense Department to bolster drone warfare “was a watershed moment,” said Meredith Whittaker, an A.I. researcher based in New York who led Google’s Open Research Group.
The New York Times
Feb 18, 2020