Data & Society

Anthropologist Mary L. Gray shares her latest book, "Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass," a collaboration with computer scientist Siddharth Suri. "Ghost Work" is a necessary and revelatory exposé of the invisible human workforce that powers the web—and that foreshadows the true future of work. Hidden beneath the surface of the web, lost in our wrong-headed debates about AI, a new menace is looming. This book unveils how services delivered by companies like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Uber can only function smoothly thanks to the judgment and experience of a vast, invisible human labor force. These people doing “ghost work” make the internet seem smart. They perform high-tech piecework: flagging X-rated content, proofreading, designing engine parts, and much more. An estimated 8 percent of Americans have worked at least once in this “ghost economy,” and that number is growing. They usually earn less than legal minimums for traditional work, they have no health bene