Future Lab: Society and Labour

The "Future Lab: Future Lab Society and Work" (2019 to 2024) is a collaboration of nine universities in Lower Saxony to research the conditions and practices of work in digital cultures. Digitization, automation and increasing data-drivenness have led to profound changes in working conditions. Understanding this in depth and taking into account different perspectives of various academic disciplines as well as partners from industry is the central concern of the Future Lab Society & Work. In this context, connected possibilities as well as prevailing hopes, fears and logics behind the design of new working worlds, as well as in relation to effects of artificial intelligence on organizational processes, are discussed, examined and thought about in an interdisciplinary way. The Centre for Digital Cultures as one of the research institutions will focus its project on the use of algorithmic management in organizations and in particular on the fragile status of anonymity within these data-driven management processes. While most debates about algorithmic management and the increasing data-driven nature of processes oscillate between economic opportunities, technical challenges, and cultural risks, there is a lack of empirical work dealing with algorithms in everyday practice - which is precisely what this project aims to address.

Contact

  • Prof. Dr. Andreas Bernard
  • Randi Heinrichs