코로나19 국면 인공지능 자동화와 플랫폼 노동의 위상학

This study aims to focus on the contemporary issues of human labor, which has been undergoing new rapid changes by means of new technologies such as platforms and artificial intelligence (AI) in the coronavirus pandemic and the expansion of the so-called “untact” comsumer market. This study confirms that, when the existing factor of “cheap nature” would be no longer valid, the capitalist shift to technological innovation and automation would be further strengthened under the condition of climate change. In particular, contrast to the “end of work” caused by technological unemployment, AI automation has resulted in massively reproducing precarious workers, who tend to be subordinated by the algorithmic control of the digital platforms. In particular, this study explores the meaning and characteristics of contemporary “enslaved/servant labor” that has been expanding widely in contrast to regular jobs, such as precarious labor, ghost labor, gig labor, crowdwork, shadow labor, emotional labor, and unpaid free labor which are interwoven with platform AI algorithms. This study highlights that today’s topological status of precarious labor could be clearly disclosed if our perspective depends firmly more on ‘capitalist realism’ than on the idealistic scenarios of post-work and “fully automated luxury communism.”