Antonio Casilli

After his first work on the impact of industrial technologies on the imagery of the body, under the influence of Donna Haraway and Antonio Negri, he studied the communicational violence and digital cultures. In Les Liaisons numériques, he analyses the uses of information and communications technologies and the impact of practices of the representation of the self (avatars, photos, and autobiographical accounts) on social structures, communication codes,[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19499771 Interview d'Antonio Casilli, BBC News] social capital{{cite magazine|language=FR|last=Guillaud|first=Hubert|title=Entretien avec Antonio Casilli : Le Web ne désocialise pas plus qu'il n'hypersocialise|magazine=Le Monde|date=10 October 2010|url=http://www.lemonde.fr/technologies/article/2010/09/10/le-web-ne-desocialise-pas-plus-qu-il-n-hypersocialise_1409669_651865.html}} and privacy.[http://www.lemonde.fr/technologies/article/2014/02/05/la-fin-de-la-vie-privee-est-un-mythe_4360380_651865.html Interview d'Antonio Casilli, Le Monde] His research also explores the relationship between information technologies and health. His methods combine participant observation and advanced research tools for social research such as multi-agent systems and social network analysis.TED talk d’Antonio Casilli, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_4s4knfuoU Étudier la censure avec la simulation sociale], 19 mai 2012, Paris.

Antonio Casilli studies the concept of privacy,{{cite journal|language = FR|first = Antonio A.|last = Casilli|title = Contre l'hypothèse de la " fin de la vie privée "|journal = Revue française des sciences de l'information et de la communication|date = 30 July 2013|issue = 3|issn = 2263-0856|doi = 10.4000/rfsic.630|url = https://rfsic.revues.org/630|access-date = 7 December 2015|doi-access = free}} criticising the hypothesis of the end of privacy as a consequence of the uses of social media. Instead of arguing that privacy is disappearing, he observes a change of perception in society. The privacy of an individual is characterised by the construction and the management of online social capital. Casilli proposes a new representation model of privacy, where it is learnt as a negotiable entity: not purely from an individual decision, but from a permanent negotiation. In this case, social media users adapt to the publication of personal information in their social circles, and on the feedback given by their contacts. The private and public characteristics do not intervene first but as a function of collective variables.

Casilli's main theoretical contribution concerns the transformation of labor by digital platforms. Notably, how automation, instead of causing a replacement of jobs, in reality, displaces them through business outsourcing processes and the reduction of human action to its smallest possible unit: a click (a process called taskification).{{cite book|title=En attendant les robots. Enquête sur le travail du clic|publisher=Seuil|year=2019|pages=400|isbn=9782021401882}} Digital labour platforms play a fundamental role in breaking up and outsourcing these tasks to millions of workers around the world, most of them located in developing countries.[https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/12/middle-east-digital-labor-microwork-gaza-refugees-amazon The Ghost of the Mechanical Turk, Jacobin Magazine] According to him, these platforms render the human labour invisible to consumers, but it is nonetheless essential to train, maintain, correct, and even impersonate artificial intelligence systems.[https://www.france24.com/en/20190204-perspective-antonio-casilli-digital-era-waiting-robots-industry-artificial-intelligence Artificial intelligence: Digital labour or slaves to the click?, France 24]

In his book Waiting for Robots. The Hired Hands of Automation (University of Chicago Press, 2025,{{cite web |author= |title=Waiting for Robots |url=https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/W/bo239039613.html |access-date=19 August 2024 |website=University of Chicago Press|series=The France Chicago Collection }} initially published in French as En attendant les Robots, Éditions du Seuil, 2019),{{cite book|title=En attendant les robots. Enquête sur le travail du clic|publisher=Seuil|year=2019|pages=400|isbn=9782021401882}} Casilli identifies three types of platforms were users—and workers—provide digital labor:

• "On-demand" services, such as Uber and Foodora.
• "Micro-work" platforms, such as Amazon Mechanical Turk.
• Social media platforms, such as Facebook and YouTube.

• La Fabbrica libertina. De Sade e il sistema industriale, Manifesto Libri, 1997.
• Stop mobbing. DeriveApprodi, 2000.
• {{cite book|title=Les liaisons numériques: Vers une nouvelle sociabilité ?|publisher=Seuil|year=2010|pages=331|isbn=978-2020986373}}
• (With Paola Tubaro et Yasaman Sarabi) Against the hypothesis of the end of privacy, Springer, 2014.
• With Dominique Cardon, {{cite book|title=Qu'est-ce que le Digital Labor ?|publisher=INA|year=2015|pages=104|isbn=978-2869382299}}
• {{cite book|title=En attendant les robots. Enquête sur le travail du clic|publisher=Seuil|year=2019|pages=400|isbn=9782021401882}}
• Waiting for Robots. The hired hands of automation. University of Chicago Press. 2025. p. 336. ISBN 9780226820958.

{{Reflist}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Casilli, Antonio}}

Category:Living people

Category:1972 births

Category:Internet culture

Category:Italian sociologists