Many hours of frustrating and long hours of work energize the robots we all see walking independently and performing menial tasks online. However, the engineers behind the scenes are rarely acknowledged, even when they control those robots just off camera. In this essay, Yifan Miller gives us a peek behind the curtain, showing the hidden labor that goes into making machines autonomous. In doing so, she raises important questions about cost of labor, allocation of resources, and accountability.

Just Tech Fellow Todd Whitney interviews artist and writer Ingrid Burrington about demystifying what technology makes invisible, their unexpected paths into journalism, and the importance of bringing levity and humor to serious work.

With the proliferation of AI in the workforce labor advocates, workers, and the public at large have started pushing for protections against AI overreach in different employment sectors. Here, Mishal Khan looks at the myriad approaches to one of these types of protections: human-in-the-loop provisions. While many states have passed different versions of these provisions, Khan cautions against a complacency that allows these provisions to co-opt workers rather than centering them.

Reflecting on the panel discussion “From Studio to Study: Artistic Research on AI and Society” cohosted by the Just Tech program and NEW INC, Ever Bussey and Rodrigo Ugarte tease out the thematic threads that ran through the conversation between artists Lauren Lee McCarthy, Romi Morrison, Dorothy Santos, and X.A. Li. They touch on how artistic practice can be a means to reveal dynamics of agency, power, and feeling with regards to technology and artificial intelligence, as well as how engineers are not the only experts.