Invisible workers—who is behind the artificial intelligence?
The article is dedicated to microworkers—highly precarious, often “invisible”workers whose labour is pivotal for the development of artificial intelligence (AI). It examines how crowdwork platforms such as Amazon Mechanical Turk, Appen and Clickworker organise the work of globally dispersed workers annotating data. It argues that, more often than not, this kind of work is performed in a highly structured, yet intransparent way, and is subject to substantial algorithmic control. This gives rise to the question of the employment classification of formally independent microworkers. The paper discusses this issue in light of the proposed Directive on the improved working conditions of platform workers.
Recent years have seen a growing volume of research on citations between courts from different countries. This article fills a gap in the current literature by presenting and analysing cross-citations between the highest domestic courts responsible for matters of private law in the EU from 2000 to 2018. It addresses two main questions: first, to what extent do judges cite foreign case law in their decisions? Second, what may explain the varying levels of engagement of supreme courts with foreign case law? Our findings offer a mixed result as to the nature and frequency of such cross-citations. Overall, we identify 2984 cross-citations; yet, only in few instances do we find a reciprocal relationship between the supreme courts of two countries, while more generally an asymmetric picture emerges. The article also discusses whether problems with the ease of access to court decisions may partly be responsible for limitations in the use of cross-citations.
This article compares the International Labour Organization (ILO) and European Union (EU) agendas concerning the digital transformation of work, and addresses possible policy gaps and their implications for international and EU labour law. It critically reviews the current social acquis of both institutions and concentrates on the key analogies between the ILO’s Centenary Declaration for the Future of Work and some of the various regulatory initiatives taken by EU institutions in the context of the Pillar of Social Rights. The article finds that, despite the often articulated calls for urgent and original measures, both institutions’ programmes present largely a prudent continuation of traditional narratives, failing to strengthen the adequacy of existing labour regulation regimes. Besides their predominantly non-binding nature, the efficacy of the most future-oriented instruments is profoundly undermined by the unreasonable exclusion of those workers who bear most of the brunt of social disparities accelerated by digitalization and casualization of work. In addition, the implementation of these initiatives may be jeopardized by complex governance methods and unresolved tensions between conflicting approaches and objectives. The study concludes that, although positive signs are emerging in the supranational legal order, much remains to be done to address the multifarious challenges arising from the digital transformation.
International Labour Organization, European Union, European Social Law, Digital Transformation, Platform Work, Social Policy, Future of Work, Labour Regulation
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