Stories in/Around the Machine

This paper examines some of the themes and findings from the project ‘Stories in/around the Machine’. This project explored how algorithmic systems have become entangled in the rhythms of informal work and life in a number of contexts across South, Southeast, and East Asia. By engaging a network of workers, unions, researchers, and artists in the region, this project teased out tales of troubles, tinkering, and trickeries of living with such technologies. In particular, it sought to interrogate, destabilise and reframe the universalist and global north centric discussions of ‘AI and Work’ that dominate much discourse in academia, development and government sectors. In many parts of Asia, a vast majority of workers earn their livelihoods through a variety of nonstandard jobs. For example, the informal sector accounts for over 60% of the Indonesian workforce and over 90% of the Indian workforce. The stories of how these largely informal settings in Asia encounter and embed algorithmic technologies paint a very different picture as compared to the global north.

Through storytelling and visualisations, this project illustrates these rich and lively stories of Asian informal economies in/around/with/against machines — from trials of Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) initiatives that seek to challenge profit logics, to anecdotes of mutual aid and care between workers navigating uncertain waters. In unpacking our interlocutors’ tales — shared with us in a number of languages including Bahasa Indonesian, Cantonese, English, Telugu and Hindi— the project also interrogates the vocabularies used in the world of computing. This includes the oftentimes ill-fitting metaphors, policies, and futures imposed in the wake of these encounters with algorithmic technologies that spill across diverse sectors including in the more traditional domains of work.