The crux of the relation between technology and labour is the process of automation. Autor and Adams argue that in the 1970s people were panicked about the job loss and other effects expected of automation. But here the author, Virginia Eubank’s gives a chilling account of how technology along with its high tech tools are profiling, policing and perpetuating inequality upon working class and poor. This books helped me to understand. The greater implications of technology in and outside of work life of a wage earner. The effects of automation, technological monitoring, disciplining, and subordination is not only at a factory, industry or corporate cabin but also in the daily routine. the author’s reasonable fear about will not only makes people jobless but also makes them insecure about their every other aspect of life such as health, wellbeing etc.
I. How the Identity of poor, working class, black and women causes multiple disadvantages for a person automated welfare schemes, which are controlled by the governors, politicians and bureaucrats who like to put barriers upon ''claims' by this intersectional groups.
II. It is very interesting to understand how inequality is reproduced among the poor, through social profiling and policing or to keep distance or punish them. Human rights report on caste system across the globe reports about a certain section of Japanese society called Burakumin, who are excluded from the mainstream is still stigmatized by the members of so-called upper strata's using digitalized government records, census and kind of social security program numbers. This kind of policing and profiling the poor shows the unholy alliance of those who govern and those who belong to upper classes.
III. The book is not exactly contributing to what we called as labour and Technology, but it gives us the picture of how welfare schemes, which are considered as positive discrimination embedded in the ideas of Social Justice, which are mostly availed by the working class and the poor. affects both work life and outside life of a worker
The author focuses on three sets of literature.
I. The first one based on how profiling of poor and working class is happening. For which, she checks out secondary data from different newspapers about relevant issues that affected the poor in the United States. She even did great research to find out how poor houses emerged and how they were maintained during the nineteenth century. for example, she quotes 1879, the New York Times report, which alleges a 'poor house ring', who were selling bodies of the deceased residents of the house of the industry to country physicians for dissection"
II. The second set of literature is based on contemporary databases and its socio-political consequences. She calls them ‘digital poor houses'. According to her deep research on this, she asserts that “the digital poor house denies access to shared resources. It asks invasive and traumatizing questions. It makes it difficult to understand how government bureaucracy works, who has access to your information, and how they use it".
III. The third set of literature looks into the historical connection of poor houses, eligibility, blame and modern databases about poor and working class. Through this historical analysis, she explains how the poor and working class are always kept suspicious about being potential roads and criminals. She gives plenty of examples of how the poor and the marginalised, who mostly belongs to black off Latin races, being systematically kept apart from the welfare schemes and benefits through the rigorous, stigmatising process of proving themselves that they are poor.
I. Poor houses and red flagging: The individualist responsibility becomes a burden for the poor, who are always accused of his laziness and responsibility, which led to him to this fate. The red flagging is the initial process where the poor come under the radar to catch ' potential frauds'. The inequality is reproduced among the poor and working class through cutting down the accessibility and delegitimizing their rights to welfare schemes ().
II. The theory of able and impotent: This division of poor into those who are rightful in claiming the social security and those who live upon eating the citizen's tax. Conveniently, it put forward a message of who is a citizen and who is legitimate or able poor. The basic logic behind this elitist division roots from the historical blame on poor liked a 'culture of poverty. The author explains these criteria or eligibility through automation and its consequences in chapter 2.
Algorithms, sympathy and discretion: the author talks about how algorithms play an important role in curtailing the basic social security plans available for an average U.S citizen through its impersonal, codified responses. Through algorithms, the agency which uses it has the accountability of welfare schemes and it also detects 'unwanted' payments and 'overspending outside by the individual and blocks it. This data collected, analysed and implemented by the automation is used by beurocrats, politicians and other agencies with high social, cultural and psychological consequences upon poor and working class
" The state of Indiana denied one million applications for Healthcare, food stamps and cash benefits in three years - because a new computer system interpreted any application mistake as " failure to cooperate". In Los Angeles, an algorithm calculates the comparative vulnerability of tens of thousands of homeless people in order to prioritise them for an inadequate pool of housing resources. In Pittsburgh, a child welfare agency uses a statistical model to try to predict which children might be future victims of abuse or neglect" The major argument of the book is the process of automation through algorithms, computer systems and artificial intelligence increase the vulnerability of the poor by profiling, policing and punishing them using the above mentioned high tech tools.
"[S]ince the dawn of the digital age, decision making in finance, employment, politics, health, and human services has undergone a revolutionary change. Forty years ago, nearly all of the management decisions that shape our lives- whether or not we are offered employment, a mortgage, insurance, credit, or a government service - were made by human beings. They often used actuarial processes that made them think more like computers than people, but human discretion still ruled the day. Today, we have ceded much of that decision- making power sophisticated machine power to sophisticated machines. Automated eligibility systems, ranking algorithms and predictive risk models control which neighbourhoods get policed, which families obtain needed resources, who is shortlisted for employment and who is investigated for fraud"
'[T]he system doesn't seem to be set up to help people. It seems to be set up to play gotcha', said Chris Holly. 'In our legal system, it is better that ten guilty men go free than one innocent man goes to jail. The modernization flipped that on its head'. Automated eligibility was based on the assumption that it is a metaphor for ten eligible applicants to be denied public benefits than for one ineligible person to receive them"
"[O]ur relationship to poverty in the United States has always been characterized by what sociologist Stanley Cohen calls "cultural Denial". Cultural denial is the process that allows us to know about cruelty, discrimination and repression, but never openly acknowledge it. It is how we come to know what not to know. The cultural design is not simply a personal or psychological attribute of individuals; it is a social process organised and supported by schooling, government, religion, media and other institutions.