PhD Project: AI Platforms and the Future of Women's Work

My dissertation project studied the emerging impacts of AI-mediated platforms, on workers, organizations, management practices, and society, through a mixed-methods ethnography with gig workers and platform managers in India. It focused on the case of beauty platforms, which employ a majority of women workers. I examined 1) women’s pathways and barriers to work in the digital economy, 2) new forms of algorithmic management in platform organizations, and 3) the social reproduction of inequalities via platform work, among other themes. The findings highlight emerging harms of AI-mediated systems, the need for stakeholder-focused AI explainability and accountability mechanisms, and effective solutions to address women’s discontinuous and low participation in secure forms of work. Since the project, I have been working with collectives of women gig workers to address some of the inequalities around platformized work, and tracking the emerging policy landscapes around AI-mediated work.