Yuk Hui, philosopher: Tech companies want to exploit us and control us every second'

Yuk Hui connects AI to questions about consciousness, ethics, and human relationships with technology, leading him from engineering toward philosophy. He proposes technodiversity as openness to multiple technological traditions beyond Western frameworks to counter a homogenizing world dominated by powerful corporations. He warns against nationalist and exclusionary ideologies and uses Kant’s ideas to examine the limits of AI. He argues that the biggest change in AI is not only technical research but the business model: many firms operate primarily as financial companies, then as technology companies. He links this model to new forms of work, including algorithm-managed delivery labor, where schedules are not flexible and life is controlled second by second through scoring, routing, and penalties.

"Most of these companies are, first and foremost, financial companies. Only after that are they tech companies. This model, he argues, is less a threat to our jobs than a force reshaping entire economies and creating new kinds of work like the rise of deliveryapp labor."

"Not only that, but your life becomes tied to an algorithm. For example, the estimated delivery time within a three-kilometer [1.9-mile] radius decreases every year. The algorithm scores, manages the route, and penalizes. Many people thought that with these jobs, at least you'd have a flexible schedule. But that's not true."

"I think the question of technology and work has less to do with unemployment and more to do with tech companies that want to exploit us and control us every second."

Read at english.elpais.com