Abstract
Many theorists of the information economy have argued that digitization has resulted in a “speeding up” of our experience of time (i.e. Gleick, 1999). This work contends that for many, especially those with less power, the techno-utopian vision characterized by datafication and Artificial Intelligence (AI) instead produces a state of prolonged waiting. Drawing from two long-term ethnographic studies examining the production and implementation phases of data-driven technologies in China and U.S., we demonstrate how the “long-standing but mistaken belief, hegemonic in Silicon Valley, that automation will deliver us more time” (Wajcman, 2019) belies the highly stratified temporal impacts of automation, datafication, and AI. Specifically, this work uses AI training and the homeless services system as case studies to reveal the politics of waiting; despite the promise of data-driven technologies, pervasive waiting serves as evidence of an enduring residue—an unequal power structure. Our findings also suggest that the technologies which mediated the experience of waiting in the first, more immediate sense, also impacted how people conceptualize the future.
Published Version
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call