Ifeoma Ajunwa on the Quantified Worker

Audio of this conversation is available via your favorite podcast service. Last week, Emma Goldberg, a journalist covering the future of work for the New York Times, told the story of Ylonda Sherrod, an employee at AT&T’s call center in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. and also vice president of the facility’s local union chapter, part of the Communications Workers of America. The story describes the ways in which AI is creeping into Sherrod’s job. For instance, one system produces automated trancscripts of calls with customers, but it has a hard time interpreting Sherrod’s southern accent, so transcripts from her calls contain mistakes. The story recounts the ways in which Sherrod’s job are being automated and quantified, and some of the fears and complications that come along with it. Today’s guest has looked deeply at such issues. Ifeoma Ajunwa is the AI.Humanity Professor of Law and Ethics and Director of AI and the Law Program at Emory Law School, and author of the The Quantified Worker: Law and Technology in the Modern Workplace. from Cambridge University Press. The book considers how data and artificial intelligence are changing the workplace, and whether the law is more equipped to help workers in this transition, or to provide for the interests of employers. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of the discussion. Ifeoma Ajunwa: This is Professor Ifeoma Ajunwa. I am the AI.Humanity Professor of Law and Ethics at Emory Law School. I’m also the author of the Quantified Worker and the director of AI…Ifeoma Ajunwa on the Quantified Worker