Behind the magic of AI - The Mirage of Total Automation and its Hidden Workers

In his book Waiting for Robots: The Hidden Hands of Automation (University of Chicago Press, 2025), Antonio Casilli explores a persistent phenomenon in AI development: the recurring promise of complete automation that perpetually remains just out of reach, while obscuring the essential human labour that powers AI systems.

Drawing from global research on AI production networks, he examines how the narrative of inevitable total automation hides the growing workforce of data labourers, content moderators and infrastructure maintenance workers. Casilli analyzes this 'Godot Effect' across multiple sectors and proposes new frameworks for understanding AI not as a purely technological system, but as a manifestation of capitalist labour practices that thrive on colonial exploitation and global workforce invisibility.

Join us for a compelling discussion between Antonio Casilli and CIRTTC director Jonathan Martineau, on AI development, labour and algorithmic capitalism.

About the speaker:

Antonio Casilli is a professor of sociology at Institut Polytechnique de Paris and a member of the CNRS Interdisciplinary Institute on Innovation. His research focuses on digital labour, AI workers' rights, and platform capitalism. His influential publications have been translated into several languages. His latest book, originally published in French as En attendant les robots (Seuil, 2019), has been published in English by the University of Chicago Press as Waiting for Robots (2025). He has co-founded several international initiatives, including the research program DiPLab (Digital Platform Labor) and INDL (International Network on Digital Labor).