What is AI Doing to Job Quality? Platformization, Fissured Workplaces and Dispersion

Antonio Casilli () and Paola Tubaro
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Antonio Casilli: I3 SES - Institut interdisciplinaire de l’innovation de Telecom Paris - Télécom Paris - IMT - Institut Mines-Télécom [Paris] - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris - I3 - Institut interdisciplinaire de l’innovation - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, NOS - Numérique, Organisation et Société - I3 SES - Institut interdisciplinaire de l’innovation de Telecom Paris - Télécom Paris - IMT - Institut Mines-Télécom [Paris] - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris - I3 - Institut interdisciplinaire de l’innovation - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, LACI - Laboratoire d'anthropologie critique interdisciplinaire - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - LAP - Laboratoire d’anthropologie politique – Approches interdisciplinaires et critiques des mondes contemporains, UMR 8177 - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris

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Abstract: Debates about AI and labour are focused on job losses, yet give little consideration to how this technology affects actual working experiences. This chapter examines the impact of AI on job quality through its use and through the invisibilized labour that sustains it, using the framework of the European Job Quality Index. AI deployment often intensifies work, increases surveillance and limits worker autonomy, while its production relies on a highly stratified global workforce of engineers and hidden data workers. These arrangements have resulted in companies outsourcing functions while maintaining control over production in what is known as a ‘fissured workplace'. Furthermore, AI-driven workplaces are creating a ‘regime of dispersion' where workers juggle numerous fragmented tasks. The chapter explores these phenomena, correlated as they are in terms of AI and job quality, while identifying the research agenda and policy implications which would safeguard all users in AI's global supply chains.

Keywords: Platformization; Supply chains; Outsourcing; Fissured workplace; European Job Quality Index; Artificial intelligence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-03-19
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://polytechnique.hal.science/hal-05562501v1
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Published in Agnieszka Piasna; Janine Leschke. Job Quality in a Turbulent Era, Edward Elgar Publishing, pp.45-60, 2026, 9781035343478

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