Brandon Ambrosino

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“Observing That Phenomenon Is A Strange Thing”

May 12, 2016 in Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

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When my brother died last year, he remained in the ether. A devoted Facebook user, his likes and friends were gathered conveniently in one space, and the updates and comments keep coming even though he’s no longer here to read, or respond to, them. This Digital Age seance bothers me. It seems an odd and unsatisfactory afterlife of sorts.

That’s my own problem, however. He would have loved receiving messages on birthdays and holidays, even after he was gone. The question is this: If I knew my own end was approaching and I was the last relative alive who knew him, would I delete his account or let it “live on,” whatever that may come to mean? I’m pretty sure I would choose the latter.

In a BBC Future piece, Brandon Ambrosino writes about this social-media phenomenon, in which Facebook serves as not only a virtual city-state but also a necropolis, impacting the way we mourn, remember and forget. Someday, if the company lasts long enough–and not even that long, really–the dead will outnumber the living. An excerpt about the author’s late aunt:

Observing that phenomenon is a strange thing. There she is, the person you love – you’re talking to her, squeezing her hand, thanking her for being there for you, watching the green zigzag move slower and slower – and then she’s not there anymore.

Another machine, meanwhile, was keeping her alive: some distant computer server that holds her thoughts, memories and relationships.

While it’s obvious that people don’t outlive their bodies on digital technology, they do endure in one sense. People’s experience of you as a seemingly living person can and does continue online.

How is our continuing presence in digital space changing the way we die? And what does it mean for those who would mourn us after we are gone?

Observing that phenomenon is a strange thing. There she is, the person you love – you’re talking to her, squeezing her hand, thanking her for being there for you, watching the green zigzag move slower and slower – and then she’s not there anymore.

Another machine, meanwhile, was keeping her alive: some distant computer server that holds her thoughts, memories and relationships.

While it’s obvious that people don’t outlive their bodies on digital technology, they do endure in one sense. People’s experience of you as a seemingly living person can and does continue online.

How is our continuing presence in digital space changing the way we die? And what does it mean for those who would mourn us after we are gone?•

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“More And More Jobs Are Being Moved To Independent Contractor Status”

April 24, 2016 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech | Permalink

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Aspects of the Gig Economy benefit consumers but are terrible for most workers. An Uberization of Labor has increased in the last few years and seems poised to become a large-scale and entrenched apart of American society. If it is here to stay, what’s even worse is many of those piecemeal positions may eventually also be eliminated by automation. 

Surprisingly, many Gig workers prefer their office-less lives because of the “greater freedom” it affords them, which is odd since most studies find that this new brand of freelancer has to hustle more hours than if trapped in a cubicle. Are bosses and office politics so awful that we would rather surrender security, vacation days and benefits to not be under the thumb of a fellow human being, even if an algorithm runs us ragged? It would seem so. We find each other intolerable enough to be sold on a Libertarian dream that may end up a nightmare.

From Brandon Ambrosino at the Boston Globe:

According to a 2014 study commissioned by the Freelancers Union, 53 million Americans are independent workers, about 34 percent of the total workforce. A study from Intuit predicts that by 2020, 40 percent of US workers will fall into this category.

While there is considerable disagreement over this projection, what is clear is that “more and more jobs are being moved to independent contractor status,” says Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor of organizational behavior at Stanford University. Pfeffer cites a recent paper that found that “the percentage of workers engaged in alternative work arrangements rose from 10.1 percent in February 2005 to 15.8 percent in late 2015.” This rise accounts for over 9 million people — more than all of the net employment growth in the US economy over that decade.

To be clear, employers are driving the change. Between 2009 and 2013, the unemployment rate was more than 7 percent, suggesting workers were turning to gigs because they didn’t have a choice. But that’s not to say most independent workers aren’t happy with their job situations. According to the Freelancers Union, a 300,000-plus member nonprofit, nearly nine in 10 of its members surveyed said they would not return to a traditional job if given the chance.•

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