Labor Tech Research Network

🤖💼 Contesting algorithmic workplace regimes in an era of flexible despotism

Join our next #AITalk with Alex J. Wood as he explores how #algorithms shape work, challenge power, and fit into a broader trend of flexible despotism.

📅 9 March | 14:00 - 15:00 CET | 💻 Zoom | ✍️ Register: etui.org/43G

Are ‘Bossware’ Tools Tracking You?

Are ‘Bossware’ Tools Tracking You?

www.nytimes.com/2026/03/01/b...

Burger King will use AI to check if employees say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ Have it your way?

Burger King will use AI to check if employees say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’

www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...

US farmers are rejecting multimillion-dollar datacenter bids for their land: ‘I’m not for sale’ Families are navigating the tough choice between unimaginable riches and the identity that comes with land

US farmers are rejecting multimillion-dollar datacenter bids for their land: ‘I’m not for sale’

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

'Students Are Being Treated Like Guinea Pigs:' Inside an AI-Powered Private School Leaked documents reveal the inner workings of Alpha School, which both the press and the Trump administration have applauded. The documents show Alpha School's AI is generating faulty lessons that som...

'Students Are Being Treated Like Guinea Pigs:' Inside an AI-Powered Private School

www.404media.co/students-are...

Dinner Is Being Recorded, Whether You Know It or Not

As Meta smart glasses capture scenes in restaurants for social media, service workers and customers are becoming captive participants.

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/16/d...

The first signs of burnout are coming from the people who embrace AI the most | TechCrunch Because employees could do more, work began bleeding into lunch breaks and late evenings. The employees' to-do lists expanded to fill every hour that AI freed up, and then kept going.

The first signs of burnout are coming from the people who embrace AI the most

techcrunch.com/2026/02/09/t...

North Star Data Center Policy Toolkit: State and Local Policy Interventions NORTH STAR DATA CENTER POLICY TOOLKIT State and Local Policy Interventions to Stop Rampant AI Data Center Expansion Draft: December 2025 Table of Contents Acknowledgements 3 Endorsements...

North Star Data Center Policy Toolkit: State and Local Policy Interventions to Stop Rampant AI Data Center Expansion

docs.google.com/document/d/1...

CFP: Digital Platforms and Digital Labor in East Asia and Beyond

drive.google.com/file/d/13DVK...

High-Speed Internet Boom Hits Low-Tech Snag: a Labor Shortage There aren’t enough linemen and other skilled workers to lay all the fiber-optic cable needed to achieve nationwide broadband internet.

High-Speed Internet Boom Hits Low-Tech Snag: a Labor Shortage

www.wsj.com/business/tel...

Google helped Israeli military contractor with AI, whistleblower alleges A whistleblower complaint filed with the SEC claims that Google breached its own ethics rules to help an Israeli contractor apply AI to drone surveillance video.

Google helped Israeli military contractor with AI, whistleblower alleges

www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Against Surveillance & Spectacle: Building Global Resistance to Tech-Mediated Oppression — DISCO Network What does it mean to be in community? This panel brings together activists, scholars, and writers to explore connections between critical social issues—health justice, discrimination, technofascism, a...

Event: Against Surveillance & Spectacle: Building Global Resistance to Tech-Mediated Oppression

www.disconetwork.org/disco-events...

Worker Voice: How Tech Workers Are Speaking Up At Work & Beyond - TechEquity Collaborative Join us to hear directly about how tech workers are choosing to speak up in their workplaces and the lessons they've learned from doing so.

Join us on January 27th, 12-1 pm PST to hear directly about how tech workers are choosing to speak up, lessons they’ve learned in the process, and ways in which you can spark that voice in other colleagues.

techequity.us/event/worker...

Labor Summer Internship Labor Summer is a full-time, PAID, intensive eight-week educational internship program. Students learn from and work with labor and community organizations in Northern and Central California, applying...

Opportunity for students: UC Berkeley Labor Center Summer Internship

laborcenter.berkeley.edu/labor-summer...

Event listing. Black and Purple text on lavender background. Text reads, "Upcoming Talks: Technocreep and the Politics of Things Not Seen. Speaker: Neda Atanasoski and Nassim Parvin. Date: January 23, 2026. In this talk, Neda Atanasoski and Nassim Parvin will discuss their recent book and edited volume, Technocreep and the Politics of Things Not Seen, published by Duke University Press in May 2025. New and emerging technologies, especially ones that infiltrate intimate spaces, relations, homes, and bodies, are often referred to as creepy in media and political discourses. The book introduces a feminist theory of creep that they substantiate through critical engagement with smart homes, smart dust, smart desires, and smart forests toward dreams of feminist futures. Contributing authors further illuminate what is otherwise obscured, assumed, or dismissed in characterizations of technology as creepy or creeping. Considering diverse technologies such as border surveillance and China’s credit system to sexcams and home assistants, the volume’s essays and artworks demonstrate that the potentials and pitfalls of artificial intelligence and digital and robotic technologies cannot be assessed through binaries of seeing/being seen, privacy/surveillance, or harmful/useful."

Nassim Parvin @nassimparvin.bsky.social will speak about "Technocreep and the Politics of Things Not Seen" at this upcoming @labortechresearchnetwork.org event on Jan. 23:

Information and registration: labortechresearchnetwork.org/speaker-series

film preview image of a hand holding fake eyes, with the Sundance Film Festival logos.

Hello, we’re Ghost in the Machine, a landmark documentary that’s mandatory viewing for anyone thinking about or using AI.

We’re thrilled to announce that we’ll be premiering at #SundanceFilmFestival next month. We hope you’ll join us in person or online, and follow along here.

Report: The Emotional Labor Behind AI Intimacy

data-workers.org/wp-content/u...

TAKE BACK TECH III 🗓️ APRIL 17-19 🍑 ATLANTA Come and gather with organizers, artists, advocates, academics, and workers who are ready to build the tech justice movement we need right now.

Event: Take Back Tech III

www.takebacktech.com

The hidden Kenyan workers training China’s AI models An unemployment crisis has created fertile ground for companies to step in with opaque systems built on WhatsApp groups, middlemen, and bargain-basement wages.

The hidden Kenyan workers training China’s AI models

restofworld.org/2025/kenya-c...

“Everyone is so panicked”: Entry-level tech workers describe the AI-fueled jobpocalypse Engineering graduates face shrinking opportunities and rising pressure to upskill beyond their curriculum.

“Everyone is so panicked”: Entry-level tech workers describe the AI-fueled jobpocalypse

restofworld.org/2025/enginee...

Google Has Chosen a Side in Trump's Mass Deportation Effort Google is hosting a CBP app that uses facial recognition to identify immigrants, while simultaneously removing apps that report the location of ICE officials because Google sees ICE as a vulnerable gr...

Google Has Chosen a Side in Trump's Mass Deportation Effort

www.404media.co/google-has-c...

Call for Papers: Karl Marx and Max Weber on the Topic of Machines Dominating Labour Part of the Joint Conference 2026 (JC2026) The 2nd RC20 Regional Conference on Comparative SociologyThe 1st RC56 Regional Conference on Historical SociologyThe 5th RC33 Regional Conference on Social S...

Call for Papers: Karl Marx and Max Weber on the Topic of Machines Dominating Labour

www.sociologygroup.com/call-for-pap...

Starting now! There's still time to join us 💫

Come join us **this Thurs, Dec 11** for our end-of-year showcase!

Meet our award winners and other LaborTech members! Participate in our monthly book club! Attend a session on the new book, Notes Toward a Digital Workers' Inquiry!

Contact Karina (email on flyer) for Zoom links :)

Revisiting The Innovation Delusion — Conversation with Andrew Russell While conducting Repair Café workshops in Bangalore (India), we’ve realized that maintenance goes hand in hand with repair. Yet we often overlook and undervalue the essential role that maintenance pla...

Event: Revisiting The Innovation Delusion — Conversation with Andrew Russell

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Event: Workers Organize to Resist ICE

labornotes.org/events/2025/...

Flock Uses Overseas Gig Workers to Build its Surveillance AI Flock accidentally exposed training materials and a panel which tracked what its AI annotators were working on. It showed that Flock, which has cameras in thousands of U.S. communities, is using worke...

Flock Uses Overseas Gig Workers to Build its Surveillance AI

www.404media.co/flock-uses-o...

Climate Conscious Tech Workers: Turning the Tide from Within On December 11 at 1 p.m. ET, Tamara Kneese, Eliza Pan, and Khari Johnson will discuss the stakes of tech-focused climate work, and how it gets done. Learn more and join us online.

Event: Climate Conscious Tech Workers: Turning the Tide from Within

datasociety.net/events/clima...

Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: From Project Blue to Stargate: The Southwest Resists Data Centers. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webinar. From enormous landgrabs, to mass amounts of water and energy use, and endless pollution, data centers like Project Blue and Stargate represent the most dangerous and extractive AI infrastructure proje...

Event: From Project Blue to Stargate: The Southwest Resists Data Centers

mediajustice.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Microsoft, Google say their data centers create thousands of jobs. Their permit filings say otherwise Chile and tech giants promise economy-wide impact but permits show fewer onsite jobs after construction.

Microsoft, Google say their data centers create thousands of jobs. Their permit filings say otherwise

restofworld.org/2025/data-ce...