Casilli

@casilli.bsky.social

🇫🇷 Professor Institut Polytechnique de Paris I write books 📚 Waiting for Robots, University of Chicago Press (2025)📚 and documentaries 🎥In the Belly of AI (2025)🎥

For once, I’m playing on home turf, as I’m interviewed by the science magazine of Institut Polytechnique de Paris. I reflect on my work as a researcher and my commitment as a conscientious objector while warmongers co-opt every use of AI. www.polytechnique-insights.com/en/columns/d...

Behind every algorithm: the unseen workers powering AI

Behind every algorithm: the unseen workers powering AI – Read the column on Polytechnique Insights

polytechnique-insights.com

Delighted to see the South Korean edition of my book out in the world. My first thanks go to publisher E-sang Books and to translator Byun Jung-soo. It’s been… hem, strange to see the positive attention the book has received in newspapers over the last few days… (Post continues in caption)

It’s been… hem, strange to see the  positive attention the book has received in newspapers over the last few days, from centre-left The Hankyoreh to conservative중앙일보 JoongAng Ilbo and even the decidedly right-wing The Dong-A Ilbo (동아일보). Don’t get me wrong: as an author, that’s gratifying. But as someone who still thinks political categories matter, it is also slightly unsettling. Perhaps the book reads less radical than I thought.

Luckily, there was also this photo.

The person who shared it with me insisted that it showed a seven-feet-tall 3D display of my book in a bookstore. I was skeptical. A giant promotional installation seemed somewhat unlikely for a 500-page academic essay.

Looking closer at the picture (and looking up the bookstore where it was taken) reassured me. The book cover appears enormous only because the photograph was taken as a closeup from above the counter. Not any counter. That’s Gnal, the legendary Seoul National University bookstore.

Gnal is the last remaining brick and mortar venue in Korea specializing in the humanities and social sciences, and it played an important role in the student movement of the 1980s and ‘90s. At one point, its owner Kim Dong-Woo was detained under the accusation of selling “subversive books”. He was released only after fierce student protests.

The name Gnal comes from a poem by Shim Hoon and roughly means “When That Day Comes.” I can’t help noticing the paradoxical resonance between that name and the Korean title of my book: “The Robots Are Not  Coming”. Automated dystopia will not prevail, while the hope for a more humane future is more resilient as long as someone is still animated by the unyielding refusal to give up on society.

The Korean translation of my book "Waiting or Robots" will be available in bookstores next week. I especially like the way the title has been rendered: “Robots Will Not Come. The myth of automation and the hidden truth of human labor” (로봇은 오지 않는다 자동화 신화와 은폐된 인간 노동의 진실) 👌🎯

로봇은 오지 않는다
자동화 신화와 은폐된 인간 노동의 진실 cover 
로봇은 오지 않는다
자동화 신화와 은폐된 인간 노동의 진실

L’IA est au cœur des 23 Md€ annoncés par Macron au sommet de Nairobi. Mais combien iront aux “ouvriers de la donnée” qui produisent réellement cette IA ? Dans mon entretien pour La Vie Ouvrière, je reviens sur les nouvelles formes d’exploitation derrière plateformes et LLM. nvo.fr/les-ouvriers...

Les « ouvriers de la donnée », nouveau prolétariat 2.0 : entretien avec le sociologue Antonio A. Casilli – La Vie Ouvrière

Sociologue et professeur à l’Institut polytechnique de Paris, Antonio A. Casilli a publié plusieurs ouvrages sur l’intelligence artificielle, dont « En attendant les robots : enquête sur le travail du...

nvo.fr

Spent a week in Nairobi speaking with data workers, organizers, activists. One story dominated every conversation: Sama, a major data annotation and moderation company, laid off 1000+ workers. Behind AI, a new “data working class” is organizing. My interview with RFI: www.rfi.fr/fr/afrique/2...

IA au Kenya: derrière les entreprises de sous-traitance, l'essor d'une nouvelle classe ouvrière

Au Kenya, la société Sama, sous-traitant de Meta, a annoncé mi-avril 2026 le licenciement de plus d’un millier d’employés à Nairobi après la rupture de son contrat avec le groupe américain. Cette déci...

rfi.fr

INDL-NA, the North American chapter of our International Network on Digital Labor, holds the 𝗦𝘆𝗺𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘂𝗺 𝗼𝗻 𝗟𝗮𝗯𝗼𝗿 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗔𝗜, hosted at Yale University in April. The event, organized by @posada.website, opens with a keynote by Julia Ticona. Register here: www.eventbrite.com/e/internatio...

International Network on Digital Labor-North America

Join our inaugural North America symposium to hear about “Workers Building, Using, and Resisting AI.”

eventbrite.com

Mardi 17 mars, 18h, mon séminaire "Le 'travail du clic'. Interroger le geste productif et ses implications pour la subjectivité politique des travailleurs de l’IA", examinera le concept dans une perspective historique. - en présence : 54 bd Raspail, 75006 Paris, Salle AS1_24 - Zoom : merci de me DM

Séminaire EHESS histoire du travail du clic

Mardi 17 mars, 18h, mon séminaire "Le 'travail du clic'. Interroger le geste productif et ses implications pour la subjectivité politique des travailleurs de l’IA", examinera le concept dans une perspective historique. - en présence : 54 bd Raspail, 75006 Paris, Salle AS1_24 - Zoom : merci de me DM

Séminaire EHESS histoire du travail du clic

Anthropic new report on AI's labor impact. Their own data show no measurable increase in unemployment. Also, they admit their framework is "most useful when effects are ambiguous." Ambiguity, like fear, is a tool for preempting labor organizing. www.anthropic.com/research/lab...

Labor market impacts of AI: A new measure and early evidence

Anthropic is an AI safety and research company that's working to build reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems.

anthropic.com

Malgré les frappes, Careem, Uber Eats et Deliveroo ont continué leurs livraisons au Moyen-Orient, mettant les livreurs en danger. Management algorithmique et précarité font d’eux de la chair à canon numérique, illustrant le lien direct entre guerre et capitalisme. www.wired.me/story/with-m...

With Missile Attacks Overhead, Delivery Drivers Are Still On The Road

Missile and drone attacks across the Gulf have disrupted daily life, but delivery drivers are still diligently navigating streets to drop off orders across the region.

wired.me

Glossaire d'éducation populaire sur l'IA, les problèmes sociaux, les retombées politiques, les alternatives possibles. Conçu pour enseignants, formateurs, travailleurs sociaux et journalistes et quiconque souhaite aller au-delà des discours dominants. iaep.be

IA en perspective 1IA en perspective 2IA en perspective 3

Podcast Radio3Scienza ft my interview (in Italian) about RentAHuman: hype, scam, or vibe coding experiment? My bet: in 2 months, it’ll turn out that all matching workers-tasks is done “by hand” (by humans and not by agentic AI) and we’ll never hear about it again. www.raiplaysound.it/audio/2026/0...

Radio3 Scienza | S2026 | Affitta un umano | Rai Radio 3 | RaiPlay Sound

Affitta un umano - Radio3 Scienza - "Affittare" un essere umano per consegnare un mazzo di fiori, ascoltare un podcast o attaccare volantini: è il servizio che offre la piattaforma RentAHuman, in cui ...

raiplaysound.it

Ieri sera Le Iene, popolare trasmissione di inchiesta della televisione italiana, ha mandato in onda la prima parte di un servizio di approfondimento sulle condizioni lavorative di chi addestra l’IA. Nel servizio anche la mia analisi, che condivido per raccontare questa realtà sommersa.

We are kicking off 2026 with a new report! The comprehensive study "Data Work in Egypt: Who Are the Workers Behind Artificial Intelligence?" conducted by the DiPLab research collective, provides the first in-depth examination of Egyptian data workers. diplab.eu/diplab-relea...

Egypt DiPLab report 1Egypt DiPLab report 2 Egypt DiPLab report 3Egypt DiPLab report 4

Yet another prime case of Potemkin AI. I hate seeing an “AI notetaker” in a zoom call recording everything. In some cases, these notetakers were literally just a guy writing everything down. We too often see vaporous hype leading to the credulous embrace of fraudulent systems.

Sam Udotong in - 1st
Co-founder & CTO at Fireflies.ai
10h •
•••
We charged $100/month for an Al that was really just two guys surviving on pizza.
We scaled Fireflies to a $1B valuation after 6 failures from our original crypto food delivery idea.
Nothing motivates you more than the pressure of living month to month with no safety net.
Before I explain how 2 broke guys validated a $1B idea, you need to understand we were couch surfing while desperately chasing our entrepreneurial dreams. An Al notetaker was our last hope after 6 ideas our friends claimed were "genius".
The best way to validate your business idea is by becoming the product yourself.
We told our customers there's an "Al that'll join a meeting." In reality it was just me and my co-founder calling in to the meeting sitting there silently and taking notes by hand.
When customers scheduled a meeting, we'd manually dial in as "Fred from Fireflies.ai" We'd sit there silently, take detailed notes, and send them 10 minutes later. After taking notes for 100+ meetings (and falling asleep in many), we were finally able to make enough money to pay the $750/month rent for a tiny SF living room. That was the point when we said let's stop and automate everything.
The best prototype was 2 guys surviving on pizza. Validation before automation saved us from our 7th failure.