Janelle Shanes, The Skeleton Crew is an expert on how algorithms and data are changing work.Two questions are asked by The Skeleton Crew. The first question is a fascinating twist on an old thought experiment. The second story is more complex because it invites us to be aware of a very real phenomenon, and to think about what we can do to change the way the world works for certain people.The first question asks about what it would look like if machines, robots and artificial intelligences felt the same way as we feel. (Remember the Haley Joel Osment baby A.I. It was designed to love its human mother in an unending way, while society slowly dies around it. Skeleton Crew is an intriguing twist, as the A.I. It has feelings that are very similar to ours, as it is actually us: The A.I. A group of remote workers pretending to operate a haunted home in order to make it appear intelligent and automated.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThis is a fun twist on the trope. The A.I. The A.I. is a real person with real feelings. This underscores their villainy, heroism or indifference to other characters. The A.I. interacts with the villains. They interact with the A.I. in deadly ways and their ultimate downfall is their fear of it. The A.I. graciously thanked the damsel in distress. The A.I. saved her life before she knew that it was humans. He is unaware of the workings of this world, regardless of how bad A.I. is. He ghosts when he is unable to make his money. It is interesting that the people who visit the haunted house are most interested in breaking the A.I. It is not intelligent (remember the Microsoft Tay release). This could be our human bravado in trying to prove that we are more difficult to replace than A.I. We are what tech companies believe we are.AdvertisementThe second, more familiar and easy question is posed by Bud Crack, an elderly Filipino remote manager. He says to his team, "I'm trying to explain things." We are. They are confused.AdvertisementThey must first understand the existence of remote workers who are faking A.I. before they can offer any assistance to those in the expected roles. The 911 operator must let go of her belief that the House of A.I. is a hoax and accept the fact that it is. The House of A.I. is controlled by advanced artificial intelligence, and the 911 operator must come to terms with the fact that a remote worker from New Zealand has been controlling the plastic Closet Skeleton at the House of A.I. He is the only one in the world to have remote eyes on a potentially dangerous situation.AdvertisementThis fictional moment is a reflection of a real reality. It's described in Ghost Work, an award-winning book by Mary Gray (an anthropologist at Microsoft Research, and a 2020 MacArthur Fellow), and Siddharth Sui (a Microsoft Research computer scientist). Ghost work is actually actual, flesh-and-blood human beings doing paid work to create A.I. Systems run. Machine learning models use supervised learning. This is where the model learns from data that has been labeled. Ghost work is the piecework, paid data labeling done by humans to help the models make correct decisions. This includes labeling images, flagging X rated content, tagging text and audio content, proofreading, etc. Some of this data labeling work may have been done for free through a reCAPTCHA that identified all bikes and traffic lights in a photograph in order to sign into different websites.AdvertisementAdvertisementThis topic has been the subject of a decade of academic research. It allows us to better understand both these working conditions and the experiences of those who participate in these platforms. These themes are connected to the Skeleton Crew story and provide some insight into this work experience.First, algorithmic management is available to many of these work environments, but not all. This includes functions like automated terminations and hiring, and also gamification performance evaluation with wages linked scores. These automated management functions are seen as an enabling scale in Silicon Valley. Human supervisors and evaluators no longer are required. The Skeleton Crew's automated management functions, which monitored workers' success in scaring visitors, were met with hostility by a hostility rivaled only [by the] profound shoddiness. Many of us have experienced some form of algorithmic cruelty. This could be something like being locked out of an account online or being scammed by fake flower websites. There are no recourses, no number to call and no human contact. Imagine your income and livelihood being subject to these automated systems and dehumanizing replies. Hatim Rahman's research suggests that you could lose your income and professional status to an automated platform for reasons you will never understand and may even be deliberately opaque. According to The Skeleton Crew, the dehumanizing treatment and shoddy systems are totally unnecessary. This may be because billionaire companies needed to pretend that there weren't humans running the system. These are real-world examples that companies or individuals have created A.I. Operations are not common, although they can be quite bizarre. One New Zealand company appears to have created a fake digital A.I. Assistant for doctors with nonsensical interfaces, such as the need to email the A.I. The system. One reporter was questioned by the founders and chided him for not believing. However, companies don't have to explicitly make false claims about A.I. Ghost work is illegal. Many activists and academics, including Lilly Irani have suggested that many human-in the-loop automated systems like Amazon Mechanical Turk rely upon the invisibility and design of the system to invisibly make the technology seem more advanced and autonomous than actually it is.AdvertisementAdvertisementSecond, despite these system and cultural designs, these work environments, like all others, are collaborative, social, and meaningful. For example, Uber and Lyft drivers collaborating to beat the algorithmically controlled prices. Even on crowd platforms that are intentionally individualistic, such collaboration is quite common. Gray and Suris also showed how crowdworkers worked together to create and maintain social connections and ensure the highest wages. The Skeleton Crew also worked together to find workarounds in the dysfunctional system. They divided the Closet Skeleton shifts as the Scare-O-Meter, which was so terrible for this job, meant that there were no wages. Until, funnyly, one of the Skeleton Crew members realized that the Scare-O-Meter could register a mop and frightened human face, and they could all get paid again for Closet Skeleton positions. Their collaboration and the way they worked together to get through this system was remarkable. It would have been disastrous for a coworker to lose someone in an individualistic job.AdvertisementThe Skeleton Crew, third, provides insight into these work environments through its entertaining examples of how humans can improvise and develop situated expertise. These abilities are difficult to automate. Lucy Suchman and her colleagues have many books and articles on humans improvisation and situated competence. The Skeleton Crew illustrates these ideas using fun details. The Skeleton Crew finds out how far the Dragonsulla has progressed through the haunted home by finding a little of her star eyeshadow inside the malfunctioning A.I. Profiles are displayed on the wall. Cheesella realizes she can get rid of one of her cheap plastic hands to distract them. She also decides to set off the fire alarm after realizing that her remote-controlled skeleton has no way to communicate with anyone in the room. Skeleton Crew's knowledge of the context and the collective improvisation required for its members to use it to stop the attack offers a realistic and fun look at how people work together even though they are far away and even when communicating via virtual communication.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThese themes give insight into the work conditions and prompt us to think about the second question. The story asks us: Can society see and appreciate the potential cruelty of ghost work conditions? Gray often compares the moment to the time when society started to understand the reality of child labor and the need for stronger laws. Gray argues for regulationspecifically, regulation that recognizes new forms of employment that do not fit in full time employment, fully in part-time work or clearly in self-employment. This is necessary to ensure that all relevant work is covered, regardless of changes in technology, jobs, or employment statuses. For this new classification of employment and the related regulations to be effective, we must see work conditions that aren't easily visible. Companies should also recognize that these conditions are not temporary and that they can lead to automation. This awareness and discussion can be started or continued by The Skeleton Crew.Future Tense is a collaboration between Slate, New America and Arizona State University. It examines emerging technologies and public policy.
