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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Smoothing Out Smart Tech’S Rough Edges: Imperfect Automation And The Human Fix, Christian Katzenbach, Christian Pentzold, Paloma Viejo Otero
Smoothing Out Smart Tech’S Rough Edges: Imperfect Automation And The Human Fix, Christian Katzenbach, Christian Pentzold, Paloma Viejo Otero
Human-Machine Communication
In this article, we take issue with an idea of autonomous and efficient automation that is upheld through the paradoxical conjunction of a flawed vision of the technological fix and the under-acknowledged human work required to fill in the gaps between machines and users. Our argument is based on two case studies that sit at opposite tails of automation processes: the front end of self-service checkouts and the back end of content moderation. This juxtaposition allows us to surface three themes on how the hype around automation is enabled by human interventions: the ad-hoc sociality in situated practices of automation, …