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And.

Welcome to Radical R, a podcast about technology, power and society and what it means to be human in the age of information, we are your hosts, Dylan and Jess.

In this episode, we interrogate the digital economy from Venmo to job automation to economic and social inequality. To explore this topic, we invited Zanella Mónika to the show, Zainal as a PhD student in management, science and information technology at MIT Sloan. She is a computational social scientist who uses causal inference and machine learning techniques to study the digital economy, technology and the future of work.

We first met Zano, a working group of the mechanism designed for Social Good Initiative, or MBD for S.G. for Short. And we knew that we had to have her on the show to highlight and spotlight her research. And we're so excited to share this conversation about that research with all of you.

A reminder that at the end of every episode, including this one, Jess and I do an extended debrief of the conversation and some of our key takeaways. And we have great banter together about various topics related to the episode. So please do stick around. And in future episodes, just know that that's a part of the show, too. So we would love it if you were to listen.

Let's just dive in. So we're talking about the digital economy and how technology shapes economic and social inequality. So some big topics, but hopefully we'll be able to break them down. And let's just start with the digital economy. Just in your own words. What is that when?

So I guess the way to think about it is, you know, exploring, you know, how people, businesses work and interact in this new era, which is, you know, really defined by, you know, profound digital transformation. So, you know, it includes, you know, these kinds of online marketplaces that kind of are going to define a lot of our interactions. So, you know, initially it was, you know, e-commerce, you know, buying things online, you know, the growth of Amazon. But now more and more, it really defines, you know, how all of these, you know, digital systems are integrated into our workplaces and organizations. And so at this point, you know, our economy is a digital economy, I would say. And so it's, you know, really when I say, you know, I study the digital economy, it's really exploring in what ways are digital technologies, you know, integrated into our are the way that we work, the way that we live, the way that we communicate. And, you know, what impact does that have on kind of our prior these prior social forces?

Yeah. And are there like a specific example you can think of in terms of those like digital economies and or maybe in terms of your own research, or is there a particular area of that that you research?

Exactly. So, yeah. So one example of that is there's been a big change in the way that we look for work in employment and jobs as people who are in the digital economy. So there was a time in which you would flip through the newspaper, look at classifieds to look for a job, or you might hear more of a job through word of mouth. And now there's a lot of ways in which digital technologies are integrated into the way that we find jobs. So there was these, you know, large online job search platforms. You know, like indeed, you can look for jobs on Glassdoor, LinkedIn. And then there's also these ways in which jobs are advertised by word of mouth through our connections. Also online early research really looked at, you know, how does Internet, Internet access impact how we search for jobs? You know, some people have access to the Internet and all the jobs are on the Internet and some people don't know how to use the Internet. That's going to impact who is employed and who is it employed, for example. It'll impact what kind of jobs people are able to get really interests me is thinking about, you know, when we have these new technologies, when we have these kind of shifts in how things are done and how does that impact different people who are in the economy and how does especially impact people who are already vulnerable or marginalized?

Do you see the digital economy as exclusionary?

And when I ask this question, I guess I mean, previously, when we talk about a lot of technologies that come up in modern society, like social media and Facebook, we say that it's transformed everything so fundamentally that we can never go back to a place where those things didn't exist. And so you're kind of missing out if you don't take part in that new, like, digital transformation. And so with the digital economy, I'm wondering for people who maybe don't have Internet access or people who don't have a way to participate in the digital economy, are they being left out or or is it just like the digital economy now exists tangentially with the digital economy? Or I guess we can just call it the economy?

I you know, I hesitate to say something so kind of all or nothing, as you know, the digital economy being exclusionary.

But I think there are a lot of exclusionary forces that exist. I think it's not it's not necessarily, by its nature, exclusionary. But I do think that they're, I guess, a term that we sometimes use, as, you know, kind of, you know, a winner takes all economy.

I think when we have these kind of returns to scale in in our economy, if we don't have some sort of policies to balance the scale in some way, then then yes, I think that that does lead to this exclusionary nature based on your research and your work is.

I guess what's new with this digital economy compared to the previous economy that we were interacting with as a society, are there unique challenges that we're dealing with now that didn't either didn't necessarily exist before or have now been exacerbated by this new digital economy?

I guess I think the thing that is new that I think is really different from kind of what we saw during the industrial revolution is the extent to which we are able to explicitly describe what the technology is doing. There's what we call, you know, tacit knowledge, you know, versus explicit knowledge. And the kind of advantage of A.I. is being able to use a lot more of this tacit knowledge that's used in tasks. You know, I think a lot of the things are the same. I think we, again, have these questions around corporations and their power. There were people who got very wealthy during the industrial revolution and people are getting very wealthy now.

There are people who are on the losing end who kind of had huge changes to their their work and their lives. And that's happening now.

Are there particular groups of people that you would say that are being harmed to a greater extent in this new digital economy than others?

So there's kind of a segment of research that really looks at in more detail this concern that, again, you know, happened has happened and like going to, you know, kind of cyclical nature, this concern around, you know, technology replacing jobs, eliminating work, leaving people, you know, kind of economically disadvantaged. So there's kind of a set of literature that looks at what's called skill biased technological change.

And so this kind of set of work looks at, you know, when there is, you know, the introduction of a technology who benefits and in terms of wages, in terms of reduced risk of unemployment, there's a lot of things that I I don't kind of love around the globe about the framework of separating workers into like low skilled, middle skilled, high skilled skill by a technical change. You know, you have this idea that when a new technology is introduced, you know, it's it's complementary with some high skilled work. So you're able to produce more as a worker because you've got this technology, you know, improving your productivity and then for some sort of low skilled work, basically the technology kind of, you know, the benefits go to people with more skills, you know, more education and then kind of, you know, other people.

Are left behind, essentially, and when you're talking about the the people who are, quote, low skill, who are being left behind, is this just because they don't get the opportunity to use new technologies in the workplace? Or does it have anything to do with the fact that their jobs might even be automated away because of technology? Or maybe it's a combination of both.

Beyond kind of the categorization of like high school versus low skilled, there's also this idea of kind of cognitive versus non cognitive tasks.

And so if you think about it, there's, you know, a set of occupations in which, you know, much of the work that you're doing is involved, some sort of manual skill you get.

One way to think about it is you've got, you know, kind of, as I said before, these kind of first wave of automation that's, you know, kind of rule based export based systems, traditional I.T. systems.

And then there's also, you know, what we think of as machine learning that's like commonly deployed in like, you know, our online interactions. That is, you know, say, you know, algorithmic trading or some kind of fraud detection, those type of tasks.

And then you also have a third set of tasks, which is combining these autonomous systems in order to kind of combine A.I. with hardware.

So, you know, there's a set of tasks that are being done by robots.

Right. And so depending on the nature of the technology, whether your task can be done, the task that you're currently being done is kind of dependent on both like the abilities of that technology and your ability. So it might compliment your ability. It might replace what you currently do or it might be, you know, unrelated.

I'm thinking about well, I'm thinking about this article I read maybe like 10 years ago, and it was called The Invisible Hand of the American Empire, and it was about like the economics of capitalism. And just like the concept of the invisible hand, like the markets are going to move where the markets are going to move. And then it brought in this concept of empire. I can't remember who it was by right now.

But this conversation is is making me think I'm curious if these changes in the economy, especially how they're making either certain communities or skill sets more. Invisible, whether there's also something going on politically here, too, like is this is there a political dimension or like a national or international dimension to this, to all of this?

Yeah. So I you know, I talked about this like kind of, you know, like straightforward story that's really just about like, you know, can the you know, can the.

Technology do the thing you're doing or not, and you know what? Has, you know, become increasingly clear if you look, you know, kind of, you know, at your, you know, kind of interactions in your daily life, you know, there's, you know, clear places where there could be a technology that's, you know, doing what an individual is doing and at that technology is not currently deployed. And so, you know, in this project that, you know, this set of projects that we're working on, that's about, you know, essentially looking at, you know, ONAT, which is this large database of, you know, all of the occupations in the U.S. economy, and then mapping those to skills, abilities and work activities. And the project we're doing is basically creating a set of rubrics for, you know, this traditional I.T., you know, supervised machine learning and then robotics. And, you know, through interviewing experts, creating this rubric to understand, like for each of these tasks in the economy, you know, how like can this is this technology capable of doing this task? And so that is, you know, you know, that matters and is a large part of what, you know, drives, you know, replacement of skills and, you know, returns to investing in a new technology.

But you can look at you can look at that, you know, what skills have been what what things are capable of being replaced. And then look at, you know. In the real world, empirically, what has actually been replaced? And what do these systems look like in organizations? And yes, a lot of that is about about power, you know, so the you know, the decision to deploy a new technology is is political.

It's like a political process and the process of how.

How that deployment happens is 100 percent political, and I think, you know, I talked earlier about kind of the hidden work on social media. For example, many of the content moderators that we talk about are not in the U.S. or internationally in different locations. And so I do think that there is this you know, there is, as you said, this power lines and also this kind of, you know, global virtual capitalism is is definitely impacting like, you know, who benefits and who doesn't benefit and who is, you know, rendered invisible and who is kind of compensated for their work and who isn't.

So it's interesting because when when when you talk about.

Different jobs being automated and especially this rubric that you're coming up with, I imagine this like evil person sitting in a room who is in charge of, like all of these workers, and they have the choice to automate all that work and they'll do whatever they can to save money, even if it means all their workers losing their jobs. And of course, this is a super pessimistic view. But I'm I'm wondering if that's actually the case if like automation as it stands, is just a capitalistic venture or if there is actually something positive to be gained within the workforce, within automation and within like the digital economy in a way that is equitable as opposed to harmful for the people who tend to be at the bottom of the rung and tend to be kicked out.

First, this image of the, you know, mad scientist, I guess, like mad at. CEO, I mean, I think.

There is I think there's definitely many things to be gained.

I think the the model of the workplace that we are moving towards and we have been moving toward for the past 10 years, I think it is not is not compatible with it.

So, you know, we have you know, we have decreasing worker power. We have kind of civilianisation of unions.

And so, you know, that, you know, that does make it difficult, you know, kind of, you know, counter like the interest and the whims of the CEO. But I think on. I mean.

But there are, you know, 100 percent things to be gained. I mean. You can see it in.

In occupations where. There is a high degree of danger, for example, so, you know, if you can deploy a robot to go into kind of dangerous situations where if something goes wrong. You could lead to fatalities or injuries then, you know, that could be valuable for the worker if the worker is able to be a part of that deployment, training the robot, working with the robot, the workers that we consider, you know, the bottom rung is we have a great deal of tacit knowledge.

So to take a step back for a second, I'm curious about you and how you got involved in this field.

Have you always been an economist at heart or has that been something that has grown over time?

No, no. I definitely noticed that the comments to heart, I'm you know, I'm honestly not sure that I am an economist either. I I guess a bit about my background.

I, you know, have always, you know, been really interested in how technology can improve the world, how it can, you know, improve real people's lives.

And, you know, when I was in high school, I was, you know, really interested in clean energy. And, you know, I was really worried about, like, you know, the decimation of our planet. And so I was really interested in, you know, a kind of research on alternative energy. So, you know, you know, like and a lot of some wind energy.

I, you know, went I spent a summer at UCLA kind of attention you biofuels. And that's always been something that I thought was important. You know, it was how, you know, I was born in Zimbabwe. You know, my family's, you know, all Zimbabwean. And I was interested in, you know, how were how, you know, the media organizations were covering this crisis. And I you know, I felt like there was just this clear media bias in how, you know, we covered.

You know, countries in Africa and, you know, and so I was really interested, you know, how do we use computation to.

To show that this is happening and to shift it to to do things differently, and so you know that.

Process of, you know, be interested in that question and then, like Darling Downs, like, OK, really like I want to like, understand like kind of, you know, document level sentiment analysis, you know, how do we map, like, articles to be sentiments around specific entities, you know, you know, what are we really saying about this specific country in this sentence? You know? And so I've always been interested in, you know, how this process from this, like, big question to like this like fine grained measurement question, which I think really when you think about how economists are studying the impact of technology, it's really these causal inference techniques that say how do we look out what the impact is on average? How do we look at the impact, like how do we look at these heterogeneous treatment effects? You know, what is the impact on, you know, these different subsets of the population?

And so, yeah, that's kind of you know you know, when I was an undergrad, you know, I you know, I didn't think that that, you know, I was not an economist at all, but I guess I was interested in kind of, you know, economist type questions.

So that's kind of how I ended up here.

If there's anybody who would like to look a little bit further into the work that you're doing or maybe get in touch with you about some of these ideas that you've brought up today, is there a best way to do that?

Sure. Definitely.

You get in touch if you're, you know, working or thinking about these issues, I you can do me on Twitter or email me. You know, my website is just my name, dot com. And so you contact me through that. Yeah, great.

And we will be sure to include all that and more in the show notes. But for now, Zanella, thank you so much for coming on the show and talking to us today.

We again want to thank Zanella for sharing her expertise and research with us in this episode. And well, let's start talking about the digital economy. Jess, what do you think? What did you get from this episode about the digital economy?

Well, I'll start off by saying that economics is not my strong suit.

So I definitely learned a lot about the economy in general and this episode, but especially the digital economy. And I think that one of the first things that stood out to me in this conversation was about some of the ghost work that Zainal was talking about. And for those who are listening, if you haven't heard our episode with Mary L. Gray talking about her book on ghost work and just all the research she's done in that area, definitely check that out if you want to explore this topic further, because ghost work is something as not only mentioned that happens in the background of all of these technological systems that are so easy for us to use nowadays. And when Zainal was talking about Venmo and the ways that we interact with the digital economy, that just seems so second nature to us now. But how there's all of this work going on in the background and all of this honestly harm that's being done to communities in the background to make these technologies easier to use for us. That was something that stood out to me right away because I really don't think about that pretty much everyone. I'm using these applications and I do think I should probably be thinking about that a little bit more.

Yeah, this reminds me this conversation reminded me a lot of different conversations that we've had with other scholars about the future of work. Specifically, we've talked more about like artificial intelligence. But I really appreciated this conversation because it was more broadly about the digital economy. And the part that's sticking with me is when Zonneveld was talking about the changes that have happened in this time of covid, in this time of pandemic. And I know from my own research and experience, there does seem to be this like stratification of society, of the people that receive goods that are being delivered to their door and then the people that are delivering those goods. And it's almost amazing to me that the world has this world, I guess, that we're living in right now with that stratification has become so normalized. It's almost scary how the economy has changed, like right beneath our feet within the past year. And like now it's normal. It's almost like mask wearing wear, like mask wearing, at least in the US was like super where there were still I mean, there's still people pushing back. I guess it felt weird to be doing that. And then, you know, within a few months we adapted or at least a lot of us attacked it. And it's just it's amazing how resilient humanity can be. But then it's also a little it's a little spooky.

I want to say about how quickly we can adapt as a society to a new way of being of doing things in a new way of being without necessarily asking those questions of like, well, what is this new economy mean for justice and equity in our culture?

I'm just going to keep pitching our old episodes in this outro because, of course, if we're talking about the gig economy and the digital economy and how that impacts jobs, then we need to make sure that we mention our previous episode with Viña double that dives a lot deeper into that topic as well. And that is just such an amazing episode. She is a really great scholar. And speaking of of work and automation, that was actually another thing that stood out to me in this conversation was the difference between the ways that automation impacts low to high skill workers in the digital economy or I guess in the workforce is I'll just use that phrase this time around.

It it's honestly something I've never actually thought about.

I guess I've thought about automation before in thinking that, OK, eventually it's probably going to take over all of our jobs, but maybe not our creative jobs. But then, you know, eventually it'll probably take over creative jobs as well. But it's not only brought up such an interesting point that right now it is the, quote, low skilled workers that are the first on the line when automation comes into the workplace and they're the first ones who are cut because automation is largely repetitive tasks that, quote, low skilled workers are being hired to do. And on the other hand, high skilled workers are the ones who are benefiting from these automated systems and the software that gets incorporated into the job. And that just feels so unfair. And it makes me wonder, well, who is making these automated systems? Obviously not the people who are getting taken out of the job.

At least that's that's what I would assume. But I don't know. What do you think about all that?

Yeah, I just I keep thinking about this info graphic that I saw around the interweb and social media's felt.

Those youth, those people experiencing you call it the Interweb Australia.

Well, I'm no longer one of them.

So anyway, on the interweb in the social media, there was this info graphic that was going around about the top, I think 10 to 15, you know, richest people in the world, predominantly men, predominantly white men, predominantly from the US. And so, you know, at the top you saw Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk and you got to see the difference between their wealth beforehand, which was just like, you know, however many billion and then beforehand I mean, before covid and then after covid. Right.

You see this massive explosion of their wealth from like several billion or even like, you know, tens of billions to like hundreds of billions or at least 100 billion or something like that. I don't know what Bezos and Musk are worth right now, but there's something wrong with that. Right? Like, I don't know for me. Right. I'm speaking for myself. Everything that you said and like that that. No. Can you even think in, like the the billions of dollars. Right. Like the fact that that much wealth is concentrated and has become even more concentrated while there's been this, you know, technical automation, which is just it it's shocking. And also, I think it's this pandemic is really. Shone a light on what was already broken in this capitalistic economic system. I think the free market. It did increase GDP and it has continued to make the rich richer, but with this automation, like you're saying, I mean, the people designing it and the people employing it are not the people who are being harmed by it directly at the very least. And so what do you do about it? Again, as as usual, I think we have a lot more questions than answers about that, because this is such an intricate, intricate system, but I think personally work there needs to be something that is done about it to begin to deconstruct these systems, because if we don't deconstruct them or at least slow their evolution, the only way forward is to continue to harm those who have already been harmed. And that's probably going to happen at an exponential rate.

That was one of the things that really actually stood out to me in this conversation, too, was like you were just saying, Dylan, this is such a complex system that's becoming so deeply embedded in our society. And covid has exacerbated and furthered and probably rapidly sped up the process of the digital economy coming into our lives. And as I was saying in this interview, there's not really a way to revert back to the non digital economy at this point in time. It's it's here and it kind of seems like it's here to stay until we do something about it. And so it's almost spooky.

I'm going to use the same word that you were used before. It's very spooky. It is a good word.

I'm spooked by the digital economy because I think that there's a lot of ways in which it can go wrong, a lot of ways that it already is going wrong. A lot of people who are already being harmed by the ways that it's being implemented, people who don't have access to it in the first place, who can't even participate in the digital economy because they don't have Wi-Fi or technological devices or whatever it is that they need to participate. There's a lot of harms that are already happening because of the way that it's being introduced into society and because of things like covid.

It is being so deeply embedded and entrenched in our systems that I'm just wondering, is it too late or is there still something that we can do to fix this before it gets to be too late?

Yeah, I want to go back to my previous point, too, though, that, like the digital economy is not this completely new thing, that people weren't like, OK, we're going to scrap all the economies and like this one digital. And so, like, this is brand new, right? It was we had this economy that even within the past 50 years, has accelerated and transformed in different ways that was built on the previous economy. Like these are in the same way that, you know, A.I. systems, they are, quote unquote racist because they're built off of racist data. And that racist data is built off of hundreds of years of segregation and racism and different ways of knowing that perpetuate that thought and all that stuff. It's the exact same thing with the economy, right?

It's like all of these divisions and all of these, you know, the haves and the have nots and who those are like, you know, a lot of people who have you know, that's why we have the idea of like old money versus new money. Right. It's like this stuff has been happening and wealth stays, you know, in wealth. Wealth works in certain systems. And those systems are not necessarily new systems, is what I'm trying to say. And that. Right. That's a lot harder to deconstruct than saying, oh, we have this new system of a digital economy that's existed for, you know, 10 years, 15 years, or just like as long as Doordarshan has been around.

What we're really saying is like we need to get to the root of this thing that's been happening for a long time, that is based off of false pretenses, that privileges the rich or the already rich at the expense of everyone else.

And like now let's start let's do that. But that's like that's a tall order for a society, unless there's a critical mass of people that are willing to actually speak out or do something about it. And I think for us as people and I don't speak for you, but for us as people who benefit from this digital economy, to some degree, it's like, how much are we willing to sacrifice of our comfort or of our way of life in order to make those changes actually happen?

That's a really good question. That's a hard hitting question. And I mean, I guess putting everything that that you just said, in short, I feel like this this pattern comes up a lot on her show. The fact that systems of inequality, they exist in the non digital world are enacted into technological systems. And that's something that can be avoided, but most often isn't. And this is not an exception to that rule, unfortunately. And it's a shame, because if people are sitting on the computer science side, the answer might not be in programming. The answer might not be in these digital systems. The answer, as you were saying, might be in fixing the system itself. And that is no small task.

And is there even is there even a non digital economy at this point? Right.

Is there even a non digital world? There is. There's definitely a non digital economy.

Is there going to be there's so many countries that rely on cash only and don't have there's so many people who don't have access to capital. There's so many ways to participate in economies globally that that don't involve a digitized element. But unfortunately, with the way that things are going, I don't think that's always going to be the case.

I guess I guess what I'm trying to argue is that, like, even if there are pockets of the world where physical things are still being used, the globalized nature of this system that we're in, which was like part of the purpose of this digital economy, was to increase the breadth of it.

I don't know. I think like every economy has to be in conversation.

At this.

Ok, with that, yes, that that I can agree with and I do agree also that that's really dangerous, that the fact that our digital economy, even locally in the United States, is excluding a lot of people, if we now take that onto a global scale, it's by its very nature, probably going to exclude a lot of people who don't have access to these kinds of resources and who don't have the ability to participate. And if you exclude people from the economy, well, where can they go? And, yeah, that's that's also very spooky.

And I'm not saying there aren't groups or indigenous cultures that exist, you know, quote unquote off the grid. But what I am trying to say is that these global economies, these global digital economies, insofar as they impact the environment, insofar as they impact different ways that culture is spread or destroyed or languages are spread or destroyed, that that has an impact even on those groups. And those groups don't even necessarily have agency or a question of how they can.

Interact with that.

Yeah, I think it sounds like, unfortunately for this episode, we are like you are saying, Dylan, coming away with a few more questions than answers this time.

So we were so close to solving it if I don't think we solved more questions in this debrief than we usually do.

So if you're listening and you think you have some answers or thoughts about these questions, please reach out to us, because clearly, Dylan and I have a lot of thoughts about this, but I do think that we've probably exceeded our time limit on this week's debrief. So for more information on today's show, please visit the episode page at Radical. I dig.

I think this is the episode in which I've spoken out about the dismantling of capitalism more than any other episode.

So that's fine. So if you enjoyed this episode and the dismantling of capitalism, we invite you to subscribe, rate and review the show on iTunes or your favorite podcast to catch our new episodes every other week on Wednesdays. Join our conversation on Twitter at radical iPod and as always, stay reticle.

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