What could possibly go wrong? A company called Rent A Human boasts on its website that “robots need your body” and calls itself the “meatspace layer for AI.” Customers can find humans to do their embodied work while would-be contractors can rent themselves out to agents. It’s a kind of demented Taskrabbit or Fiverr. Potential tasks include signing things, picking things up, and making purchases. As the company puts it, these are things “AI literally can’t do.” Finally, we’re going to work for the robots. Sort of. But the problem might not be what you think.
The conceit of the company is in a sense benign enough, at least at second glance. At first glance, one perhaps thinks of Skynet or whichever AI overlord of greatest fear comes to mind — whichever featured in the last film or television show you watched. Thinking on it for a second, past the instant invidious reaction, it’s back to benign. What’s the problem here? This is the first company of what, surely, will be many? Renting a human is a euphemism for the tried and true practice of wage labor. That there are criticisms to make of the arrangement is, ah, very well documented. Paging Marx, Engels, and the entire back catalog of critics of exploitation.
Selling and buying labor. There’s plenty to worry about in this arrangement as such, but what makes this particular case exceptional? How is this problem different from, say, contract work organized through a pinup board or a newspaper advertisement? The loudest five-bell alarm seems to be that the robot overlords are at the gate. This is, to be sure, at least worth considering and worrying about in the long run. And insofar as this is another step down the sullied primrose path toward synthetic Leviathan, it is a risk. But that’s, at worst, a long-future problem. The robot uprising isn’t at hand. The effects within and upon the current dynamic of labor and capital, however? That’s a different matter.
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Auteur: David Moscrop
