2025.May.15

REPORTS

Report on the 34th B’AI Book Club
Moritz Altenried (2022) The Digital Factory: The Human Labor of Automation

On December 17, 2024, the 34th session of the “B’AI Book Club” was held in a hybrid format. During this session, B’AI Project Researcher Honoka Kato introduced the book The Digital Factory: The Human Labor of Automation (2022) by Moritz Altenried. This book was also published in Japanese in 2024 (translated by Akihito Kobayashi, published by Hakuyosha).

In the book, Altenried discusses the labor systems that underpin digital capitalism, based on qualitative research such as interviews and ethnography. Through various concrete examples, such as labor related to logistics, gaming, cloud work like product description writing, and social media content moderation. The book demonstrates how human labor, both online and offline, is closely intertwined with the process of automation. The book argues that digital technology does not simply replace human labor but, rather, with technological advancement, the labor system is reconfigured.

During the book review meeting, it was pointed out that while the types of labor discussed in the book have already been covered in other studies and reports, the concept of “digital Taylorism” makes the characteristics and structure of such labor clearer and easier to understand. Additionally, participants expressed interest in the point introduced in the latter part of Chapter 4, where he writes that cloud workers are attempting collective resistance against the precarity of their labor. Throughout the discussion, participants shared concerns about how to address inequality and injustice in the current economic system, where workers’ rights are often disregarded, leading to a lively and engaging debate.