Winter School 2020: SILENT WORKS: The Hidden Labor in AI-Capitalism: Program now online

AI-capitalism denies the labor that sustains it – more aggressively and systematically, but also more desperately than previous iterations of capitalism have. And it does so not only where AI has set out on a path of success – be it in North America, Europe, and China, or, to some degree, globally – and where self-learning algorithms are being deployed to organize digitized systems as varied as social media and policing. AI-capitalism is also in the process of establishing its regime of hidden labor where AI is only projected to play an important role in the future. This happens when the mere appearance or fantasy of autonomous automation is successfully promoted, for instance, by naturalizing infrastructure: as long as its appeal of frictionless functioning can be upheld, infrastructure can remain practically invisible, while – in the course of this – the (waged and unwaged) labor that it requires becomes almost imperceptible.

SILENT WORKS unlocks and politicizes the hidden labor so essential to AI-capitalism – in video talks, artworks, projects, audio documents, dossiers, and more. The results of a year-long inquiry by researchers, artists, and activists from more than 25 countries are now available online at https://silentworks.info

The Winter School took place between November 7 – 28, 2020 at the Haus der Statistik in Berlin.

In cooperation with Harun Farocki Institut.