Hot off the presses! In this new piece, we trace neoliberal automation in bus transit—"driverless" pushes that accelerate class decomposition and weaken collective bargaining, masked as innovation. These threaten wages and safety, yet workers are resisting and advancing more just alternatives.
📣 New! In seeking to accelerate AI infrastructure projects in PA, efforts that bypass local governance can harm communities. @cellllla.bsky.social & @mwoluchem.bsky.social offer an alternative framework that better aligns state infrastructure goals with local needs. datasociety.net/library/last...
poster for "the future of (data) work." top right corner contains event info: April 10, 9:30-4:30pm, Aaron Burr Hall 219." Under the title is the conference description: "The rapid expansion and commercialization of artificial intelligence systems has been enabled by the upscaling of data work, defined by Miceli and Posada as 'the labor involved in the collection, curation, classification, labeling, and verification of data.' Amidst debates about how 'intelligence machines' will impact the global workforce, this conference brings together a multidisciplinary group of scholars and organizers to examine the histories, topographies, and lived realities of data work around the world, centering the people behind the platforms that dominate our present to imagine alternative futures." Underneath this text is the list of panelists and their affiliations: Beth Semel, Organizer, (Assistant Professor, Dept of Anthro, Richard Stockton Picentennial Preceptor) Hunter Akridge Research Assistant (Grad Student, Dept of Anthro), Alex Hanna (DAIR), Seyi Olojo (UC Berkeley), Cindy Kaiying Lin (Georgia Institute of Tech), Julian Posada (Yale), Shivani Kapania (CMU), Samantha Dalal (Princeton CITP) Lilly Irani (UCSD), Sarah Fox (CMU). The background image, from Hanna Barakat/Archival Images of AI/AIxDesign, is a picture of hands yanking invisible strings through a rare earth mineral with a microchip superimposed over it set against. On the bottom of the poster are the sponsors (Princeton AI Lab, Princeton Dept of Anthro), and a QR code for the program).
interested in questions of tech, labor, and worker futures? on April 10 in Princeton i'm hosting an outstanding lineup of panelists at "the future of (data) work," where speakers will discuss the ethnographic, archival, and participatory action research they've conducted with data + tech workers
Screenshot of an academic paper titled "The Algorithmic Gaze of Image Quality Assessment: An Audit and Trace Ethnography of the LAION-Aesthetics Predictor" authored by Jordan Taylor, William Agnew, Maarten Sap, Sarah E. Fox, and Haiyi Zhu
🎨💻 What is a “high-quality” or “aesthetic” image according to generative AI developers?
Happy to share that our investigation of the LAION-Aesthetics Predictor has been accepted at #FAccT2026! 🧵 (1/5)
Take a look at a preprint here: arxiv.org/abs/2601.09896
A big morning for archiving and advocacy in tech! This project by @cellllla.bsky.social and others documents workplace surveillance incidents across the U.S., as well as resources for action: wsit.work
New commentary by @cellllla.bsky.social, @perhaxis.bsky.social and myself: "The tech worker movement and the rise of the tech oligarchy". www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
What’s augmentation-washing? In a new piece out at @techpolicypress.bsky.social, we argue that “augmentation” language reframes automation as empowerment—masking real shifts in control, workload, and labor relations.
GOOD LUCK!!!
It’s the last day of #CSCW2025! Come by at 2:30pm at the Perspectives on Data Privacy session to watch me discuss the resistance tactics that workers use to circumvent surveillance and how they build towards collective action
👋 Hello #CSCW2025! I’ll be presenting my paper on tech worker organizing on Monday at 4:30pm in the Advocacy Work session and my dissertation work “From the Future of Work to the Future of Labor: Centering Worker Resistance in Age of AI and Automation” at the demos/posters reception! Please say hi!
Don't miss this chance! Cella is a force and any department would be lucky to have her.
🎉 Thrilled to share that @samshorey.bsky.social and I have signed a book contract with @ucpress.bsky.social through their Co-Opting AI Series! "Reparative AI" is about what happens when AI breaks, and how repair becomes resistance, sabotage, and a challenge to whether AI is worth saving at all.
Jobs, jobs, jobs!
Couldn’t be prouder of Franky Spektor, who successfully defended her dissertation today: "Documentation as Direct Action: Alternative Data Practices for the Labor Movement"! 🎉Her work surfaces the risks of data-driven evidentiary standards that too often obscure, rather than reveal, workplace harm.
Screenshot of the CSCW 2025 paper "The Future of Tech Labor: How Workers are Organizing and Transforming the Computing Industry" CELLA M. SUM, Carnegie Mellon University, USA ANNA KONVICKA, Princeton University, USA MONA WANG, Princeton University, USA SARAH E. FOX, Carnegie Mellon University, USA Abstract: The tech industry’s shifting landscape and the growing precarity of its labor force have spurred unionization efforts among tech workers. These workers turn to collective action to improve their working conditions and to protest unethical practices within their workplaces. To better understand this movement, we interviewed 44 U.S.-based tech worker-organizers to examine their motivations, strategies, challenges, and future visions for labor organizing. These workers included engineers, product managers, customer support specialists, QA analysts, logistics workers, gig workers, and union staff organizers. Our findings reveal that, contrary to popular narratives of prestige and privilege within the tech industry, tech workers face fragmented and unstable work environments which contribute to their disempowerment and hinder their organizing efforts. Despite these difficulties, organizers are laying the groundwork for a more resilient tech worker movement through community building and expanding political consciousness. By situating these dynamics within broader structural and ideological forces, we identify ways for the CSCW community to build solidarity with tech workers who are materially transforming our field through their organizing efforts.
What can #CSCW learn from tech workers who have been involved in collective action and unionization about how to make transformative change within our field?
My new #CSCW2025 paper with Mona Wang, Anna Konvicka, and Sarah Fox seeks to answer this question.
Pre-print: arxiv.org/pdf/2508.12579
Out now in the AI Hype special issue in Digital Journalism, "Automating Essential Work:"
📰 10 years of news stories
📈 tech company execs become sources when the industry shifts from traditional automation to robots
👷🏻♀️ 0 quotes from on-the-ground workers
doi.org/10.1080/2167...
* STS folks! * CMU is hiring up to 2 tenure track faculty focused on: the intersection of tech & social change, the environmental and social impacts of science, tech, and medicine. They will be housed in History, a department of both historians and anthropologists.
apply.interfolio.com/170040
I did an interview w/ Pittsburgh's NPR station to share some of my views on the topic of the McCormick/Trump AI & Energy summit at CMU tomorrow. Despite being hosted at the university, there will not be opportunities for our university experts to contribute viewpoints at the event.
Text on a pink background that shows the title of the new primer: "Gear Shift: Driving Change in Public Sector Technology through Community Input" by Meg Young, Sarah Fox, Vinhcent Le, and Oscar J. Romero Jr. It includes a quote: "The path forward for equitable government technology requires a fundamental gear shift."
New! Govt tech purchasing has never been more high stakes, yet decisions about it rarely include public input. @megyoung0.bsky.social, w Sarah Fox, Vinhcent Le, & Oscar J. Romero Jr, explain why such input is essential, and outline specific opportunities & tactics. datasociety.net/library/gear...
moral crumple zones as a service
Fantastic news, congratulations!!
Hooray, congratulations!!!
Apply to work at the UCSD Labor Center as a Program and Communications Manager! Applications close in about a week. laborcenter.ucsd.edu/get-involved...
New pub out from @davidthewid.bsky.social and me. We suggest that computer science should learn from anthropology’s critical examination of its colonial roots. AI for good projects like low resource NLP resemble early salvage anthropology projects, where anthros tried to preserve “dying” languages
Students should study the humanities not because it makes them better workers but because it rips you open and breaks your brain and changes everything you thought you knew. I *promise* you this. I *promise* it has this ability, no matter how smart you think you are. I have seen it countless times.