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Herald: And yeah, please give
a warm welcome to Sebastian!
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applause
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Sebastian: Hi, and thank you for the
introduction. Thank you all so much for
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having me. So, what am I gonna
talk about tonight? I will
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of course, being an artist, talk a bit
about some art projects but mostly
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I will speak about the research I do
as part of my practice, specifically
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about humans as software extensions.
And towards the end I will
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share some thoughts on why being a human
software extension could actually be
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something maybe not positive but brings
some new possibilities. So I will try to
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end the talk on a positive note. In 2008,
the science fiction movie "Sleep Dealer"
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speculated about a future which couldn't
be more timely. The border between Mexico
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and the US has been closed. Therefore,
immigrant workers in the US have been
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replaced by robots. However, the robots
are remotely controlled by people in
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Mexico who have their bodies plugged
directly into the network. Then, 2 years
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later, in 2010, the CEO of CrowdFlower,
which is a crowdsourcing and cloud work
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platform, Lukas Biewald speaks of a
similar situation: "Before the Internet,
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it would be really difficult to find
someone, sit them down for 10 minutes and
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get them to work for you, and then fire
them after those 10 minutes. But with
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technology, you can actually find them,
pay them the tiny amount of money, and
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then get rid of them when you don't need
them anymore." Biewald's remarks, however,
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are not Science Fiction. Instead, they
describe a contemporary condition. So,
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humans as software extensions: What is
this condition? I would summarize it as
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people extending computational systems by
offering their bodies, their senses and
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their cognition. And specifically bodies
and minds that can be easily plugged in
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and later easily be discarded, so bodies
and minds algorithmically managed and
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under the permanent pressure of constant
availability efficiency and perpetual self
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optimization. So, as such, humans as
software extensions are both, the
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foundation and the result, of a mega
structure which Benjamin Breton calls "The
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Stack". It's a computational totality of
planetary scale so somehow we can imagine
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it as a planetary scale computer
consisting of a stack of layers from rare
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earth minerals to data centers to bots and
people which in this model are exactly the
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same. So, in this computational totality,
even the smallest nodes can be addressed
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and can be programmed. What The Stack also
describes is a new geography so Google
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Maps defining borders or, as just seen in
Sleep Dealer, the US building a wall while
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still being able to plug right into the
bodies of Mexican workers. But to be
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clear, from my point of view, the model of
planetary scale computation as a totality
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is as much a reality as it is also a
gigantic fantasy and ideology of power,
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optimization and efficiency. So this is
the state of self-driving cars right now,
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at least from the perspective of a Ford.
So I would now like to give some examples
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about what I mean by humans as software
extensions and what effects these, like,
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this way of managing digital labor has. 3
years ago, I worked on a piece in which I
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explored digital colonialism and, among
other things, I explored Google's and
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Facebook's attempts to integrate into
their services those 2/3 of the world
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population who are not online, yet. As you
all know, Google wants to use balloons,
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Facebook wants to use drones and they want
them to circle above these areas that do
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not have any internet connection basically
sucking that which is below up into the
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network. So the piece of which you see a
little bit here is called "How to Appear
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Offline Forever" and it consists of a mix
of found material like videos, images, and
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questions and there's also a layer of
stories written by people from Silicon
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Valley, Sri Lanka and Zambia which are all
locations of importance to this piece. And
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so in order to get in contact with people
in Sri Lanka, I ended up using the
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outsourcing platform Upwork which offers a
highly efficient interface for hiring
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freelancers from all around the world. On
that platform, you can sort freelancers by
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price, skills, rating and then you can
pick whoever you think fits the job best.
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And their user experience of hire and fire
is well crafted. So it's software
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extensions that can be plugged in and
removed again easily. It doesn't matter
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where they are, who they are as long as
they get it done. So once the freelancers
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in Sri Lanka got to work I noticed that it
was not only able but also encouraged to
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spy on them. Upwork records every
keystroke and regularly takes screenshots
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while freelancers work, building a growing
diary of their activity. So I found myself
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in a situation in which I wasn't only
being surveilled by corporations or
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states, I was also doing the same myself,
managing my extensions spying on them in
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order to monitor their performance. So
this is not them, like corporations or
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states, spying on us, us protecting
ourselves against them through encryption.
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This is all of us fighting for our place
in the network trying to be valuable
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nodes. So this is me and one of the
freelancers which is a very lovely lady I
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got to meet in Sri Lanka later. So if you
look at this historically and if you go
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back just 15, maybe 20 years, outsourcing
via the internet was a practice that could
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only be employed by big IT companies,
mostly from the US, India. Today it is
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cheap and easy and it can be done by
anybody. A new service by Amazon called
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Amazon Key illustrates this rather new
situation perfectly. With Amazon Key, you
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can remotely grant access to an apartment
while you're not at home using the Amazon
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Key camera, lock and app, you can spy on
the otherwise completely invisible workers
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from your smartphone. So this is the lock
remotely unlocked. So here outsourcing
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doesn't generate free time. Instead, it is
born out of necessity. It is marketed as
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making possible the transformation and a
liberation from being managed to also
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being able to manage others and, in this
case, you're able to deal with them like
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without ever having to meet them in
person. So now everybody, not only can but
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has to, and actually, of course, wants to,
we all want to use people as software
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extensions and with that comes also that
we have to remotely track and rate their
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performance. So let's recap: Factory
workers are extending machines with their
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bodies. Freelancers have escaped the
factory but have to offer themselves as
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flexible extensions to the modern media
assembly line, for example like which I
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saw on Upwork. So now micro-entrepreneurs
have to invent their own shops, offering
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their creativity in the form of little
packages that are called gigs. You can buy
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such gigs at a fixed price on platforms
like Fiverr. For those who do not know
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Fiverr: Initially each each gig on Fiverr
was priced at exactly $5 of which the
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platform kept $1. So some months ago, I
found a way to directly access all videos
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uploaded to the platform in real time,
including every single video that people
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on Fiverr are producing for their clients.
So through this crack in the surface, or
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you could also call it a security problem
or a privacy issue they have, I could look
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at the leaked stream of videos and I did
this for days and weeks and months and I
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downloaded videos worth of like more than
100 GB and I was looking for some patterns
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to understand this marketplace. So to give
you some ideas about what I saw there: On
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the platform it is dog-eat-dog. Be the
best the cheapest, the most creative, the
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most efficient, be just like a proper
software extension. Never sleep, work all
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the time. At the same time, everybody is
also fighting against the platform's
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algorithms and clean interfaces that hide
most gig workers on page 2, 3, 4 and so
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on. As many gigs offer unrealistically
short delivery times for creative work, it
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becomes clear that they themselves use
bots, generators and templates, simulating
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creative work and creating yet another
layer of man-machine complexity. So using
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automation in order to not be replaced by
automation. Their biggest selling point
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seems to be their low cost coupled with a
truly natural interface: a human being. In
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contrast, there is another group of people
consciously offering their bodies often as
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carriers of messages like screens. So
here, the fantasy of the universal
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addressability and availability of all
nodes manifests itself in the distant and
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often exotic body that acts as a screen.
This goes hand in hand with gigs offering
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personal porn or erotic videos and fetish
videos. So here, I would summarize: Being
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a software extension on a hyper-
competitive platform fosters and demands
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something that I would call survival
creativity, that means coming up with
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whatever it takes to survive in a
competitive environment. And as I
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reminder, Fiverr might be an extreme
example but it exemplifies a development
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that has become a reality for many already
and it's not like it's them and us, we are
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all human software extensions. So far I've
managed to talk about software without
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mentioning artificial intelligence even
once, that's nice I think. Instead I've
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drawn this a bleak picture of a quasi
totality of work and exploitation.
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However, automation and artificial
intelligence supposedly imply a future
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without work, right? So in the previous
examples, platforms, software, artificial
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intelligence acted as scientific
management. The Taylorist boss
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algorithmically distributing and
modulating human workers as software
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extensions. Now, one great post work ideas
is to not only automate the management of
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working bodies and minds, but instead to
completely replace all human nodes with AI
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as well. While I think this is an
excellent foundation for discussing our
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society's obsession with work, I would
also argue this hypothesis is as appealing
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as it is flawed, unfortunately. So my
observation is this: AI, artificial
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intelligence, is an appropriation and a
possible extrapolation of existing
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knowledge and skills, yes. And as such it
might as well do our jobs but it is first
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and foremost used as a scheme to fragment
work into tasks that can be done anywhere
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24/7 and to make this labor invisible.
What we see here is a piece called
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"Segmentation Network" which I made last
year it plays back over 600,000
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segmentations manually created by
mechanical crowd workers, Mechanical Turk
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crowd workers, for Microsoft's cocoa image
recognition data set. These so-called
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segmentations are based on photos we have
uploaded to Flickr and they are used in
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machine learning, training AI what it can
see and what not. So you can automate as
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much as you want but at some point you
will have to train and especially maintain
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the machines and the software. So I would
say AI creates yet another layer of badly
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or unpaid care and maintenance work which
is often invisible on purpose. So I would
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say this needs to change. And I think
Feminist theory and practices have to lot
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have a lot to say about this issue but
that's another talk and I would like to
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hear it. So here is a point in case and
maybe a solution: At the end of 2011,
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while still being students and sharing a
studio Silvia Larusso, a friend and
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artist, and me we started to take a
screenshot of every single captcha that we
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had to solve while navigating the web. So
over the years, proving that we are human
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time and time again, we captured hundreds
of captchas. This year, we thought about
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how to make this little thing or these
like little things, the collection of
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these things, into something which is as
valuable and as expensive as possible and
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so we published the complete collection as
a series of five handmade Leporello books.
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So each of these books is one year. And if
you if you expand all these Leporello,
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they have a total length of 90 meters
chronicling five years of micro labor as
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well as the history of captures. So if you
look at it, captures started as a
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technique to merely prevent spam and then
they kind of morphed into a method for
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deciphering house numbers and transcribing
books. And then lately it's become a means
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of teaching image recognition to AI
software. While we were collecting these
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captures, Gabriela Rojas Lozano in 2015
filed a class action lawsuit against
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Google and she claimed that Google
operates a highly profitable transcription
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business built upon free labor which it
deceptively and unfairly obtains from
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unwitting website users. Unfortunately,
her claims were rejected. So here the
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judge states that it's like you spent only
a few seconds on this it cannot be
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expected to pay for such a small job. So,
however, her attempt to sue Google was
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still a success I would say because it led
to the proof that Google has perfected a
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magical process in which work is
transformed into literally nothing. So
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welcome post-work society! How does this
magical trick work? It's rather simple.
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You take a job, let's say transcribing
books, and you fragment it and you
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fragment it more and more and more until
suddenly the job is magically done without
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anyone having ever worked on it. Because,
if nobody has to get paid, nobody had to
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work either, right? Hence, the judge's
statement is proof that this magic
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actually works. It gets better. In the end
Google still ends up being paid even
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though they have just made the job
disappear magically. So what I want to
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suggest now is to seize the means of
magic. What about this: Fragmenting those
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platforms that algorithmically manage us
to such a great degree they simply do not
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exist anymore? Magically, their job will
still be done and in the end we get the
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money. I guess in like a less magical
version we could call this platform co-
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operativism. If you do not believe in
magic then I have two more suggestions
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about what we, as a software extensions,
can do. So I will show you two clips from
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my latest video piece which is called "I
Will Say Whatever You Want in Front of a
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Pizza". You can see the full version
online on this website, all that's gonna
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be, I think there's going to be a
screening somewhere here in the in the
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video lounge. Anyway, I will show you two
bits even though it's a 12-minute video
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and just looking at two bits doesn't make
too much sense still I think they show a
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point I wanted to make pretty nicely. So
the video is narrated from the perspective
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of a cloud worker and this is the
protagonist:
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Protagonist: [unintelligeable speech from
video] Instead, I was working for a pizza
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delivery company. Brian, your next
automated pizza delivery is scheduled for
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Saturday February the 25th at 12:00 p.m..
To confirm, text yes. To decline, text no.
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Text help for help.
Other voice: Thank you, Papa John, you
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handsomeman. I shall call
you the Carbs Vixen.
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Protagonist: We're sorry, we didn't
understand. Please confirm or decline.
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Other voice: When I make love I imagine
you tossing some dough shirtless
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Protagonist: Dude, our automated system
isn't set up yet. This is a real person
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texting you. I make minimum wage, please
just tell me if you want the pizza
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S: So, that's a protagonist. To give you
some background: In 2016, Donald Trump's
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team hired a Singaporean teenager through
Fiverr which is the platform I talked
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about before, and they hired her to
convert a PowerPoint into a Prezi which is
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the software I'm using for the video,
basically outsourcing the Make America
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Great Again campaign, which is it's a true
story. laughter in background So at some
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point in the video, the protagonist who is
now working and only as a pizza delivery
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bot but also as a cloud work on Amazon's
Mechanical Turk platform, preparing data
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sets for AI, at some point he gets to know
the Singaporean teenager as a fellow
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worker. And she has got an idea.
Protagonist: One day, I found a thread
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started by her. She talked about the
political implications of what we did and
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what kind of things we could do. Of
course, we on Mechanical Turk had created
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the data set. It was sad to see how
depressed many of us actually were.
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Other voice: Researchers asked 500 workers
to complete a survey which contained a
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standard clinical depression survey. 170
workers agreed to share their Instagram
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post for the study. Out of those 170
workers, 70 were clinically depressed. By
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the way, the depression filter is Inkwell.
It turns photos to black and white and
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adds high contrast. Better not to use it.
Protagonist: But she pointed to something
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else. It was in our power to manipulate or
even to change the very core of such
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mechanisms: our data sets, machines,
society, you, the future. We started to
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discuss, to organize and to experiment. Of
course, we didn't always agree. Was this
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just for fun, like Easter eggs? Did we
share a political agenda? In any case,
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things had to happen secretly. Otherwise,
it wouldn't work. Teaching Google to
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identify a photo of an eggplant as British
singer Chris Meloni served as a proof of
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concept.
S: Okay, so the ideas is this: When we are
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extending software with our bodies and
minds, we are also extending our reach
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into the software, and reaching into the
software, being part of the software, we
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can start to manipulate these systems that
govern us and that we have to use to
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govern others. And once we are plugged, in
we can manipulate data, we can create new
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and weird and slow and inefficient
software from within. So it can be fun,
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like leaving easter eggs for others to
find realizing yes, there are actual
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people inside these systems. Which brings
me to my third and last thought: Why being
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a software extension also has some chances
or possibilities. I will end the talk by
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talking about Mark Zuckerberg which will
make me look like a fool anyway. Being a
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software extension can also offer a new
aesthetic and a new way of being and I
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think this video which could be called the
father of all stupid demos illustrates
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this in a rather interesting way. Here,
for whatever reason Zuckerberg is
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demonstrating Facebook's virtual reality
by visiting Puerto Rico in the wake of
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Hurricane Maria. So why do I show this
video? Contrary to what he had intended,
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Zuckerberg as a crudely abstracted version
of himself turned into a software
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extension, detaches and dissociates
himself from the real world. This is what
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I like. Because I think and you will agree
with me: Software is not perfect. It's
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full of bugs, it often behaves in
unexpected and weird and glitchy ways,
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doing stupid things often and like often
over and over again, in an infinite loop.
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Therefore, embracing the weird and
abstract asthetic of a of a human as a
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software extension could actually allow us
to detach ourselves from circumstances and
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which we are required to be our best
working selves all the time. So being like
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available all the time, addressable,
programmable, to update ourselves all the
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time. We could like use being a software
extension, the aesthetic of being a
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software extension, as a mask behind which
we can hide, pretending to be a bot.
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That's the idea. Thank you.
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applause
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Herald: Thank you, Sebastian, indeed, for
making a bleak future look a little bit
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more bright. I think we have about five
minutes for very short Q&A, otherwise, he
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said you have a Twitter account and you
can also meet Sebastian next to the stage.
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So are there questions, maybe from the
Signal Angel? None? Okay, then just
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another round of applause for Sebastian!
Sebastian: Thank you.
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applause
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postroll music
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subtitles created by c3subtitles.de
in the year 2018