In the first event in the Work of the Future Book Series, anthropologist Mary Gray will talk about her book Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass.
In Ghost Work, Gray and co-author Siddharth Suri examine how services delivered by major companies such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Uber can only function smoothly thanks to the judgment and experience of a vast, “invisible” human labor force—comprising people doing “ghost work.” An estimated 8% of Americans have worked at least once in this “ghost economy,” and that number is growing. Gray and Suri look at how ghost workers, employers, and society at large can ensure that this new kind of work creates opportunity for those who do it.