Julian Posada

Julian Posada

Assistant Professor

Yale University

About Me

I am an Assistant Professor of American Studies at Yale University and a Just Tech Fellow at the Social Science Research Council. My research centers on the social and cultural dimensions of information, with a particular emphasis on the relationship between labor and the development of artificial intelligence.

My book, Platform Extractivism: Data Work and the People Powering Artificial Intelligence (University of California Press, October 2026), argues that the labor underpinning artificial intelligence is organized through a form of “platform extractivism” that exploits economic instability to capture value from precarious populations. The book reframes AI data work as a continuation of historical extractive relations, offering a critical intervention into debates on the future of work and the costs concealed behind digital platforms.

My academic articles have been published in journals including Big Data & Society, Information, Communication & Society, Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence, and the Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction. My research and commentary have appeared in media outlets including The Economist, Fortune, WIRED, the MIT Tech Review, and NBC. My research has been supported by the International Development Research Centre and the Social Science Research Council, with funding from the McArthur, Ford, and Surdna foundations.

I hold a Ph.D. in Information Science from the University of Toronto and have held visiting appointments at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Weizenbaum Institute. I am a fluent speaker of Spanish, French, and English.

Interests
  • Platform Labor
  • Data Studies
  • Social Computing
  • Digital Ethics
  • Information Policy
Education
  • Ph.D. in Information Science, 2022

    University of Toronto

  • Master's degree in Sociology, 2018

    School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences

  • Maîtrise degree in the Humanities, 2016

    Sorbonne University

Publications

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(2026). Platform Extractivism: Data Work and The People Powering Artificial Intelligence. University of California Press (October, 2026).

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(2026). The Consensus Trap. Proceedings of the 2026 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT ‘26).

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(2025). Remote Robotics, or the Digital Re-embodiment of Labour. Work Organisation, Labour & Globalisation.

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(2024). Factors Influencing Trust in Algorithmic Decision-Making. Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence.

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(2024). Deeply Embedded Wages. Big Data & Society.

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(2023). Labor, Automation, and Human-Machine Communication. The SAGE Handbook of Human–Machine Communication.

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(2023). Platform Authority and Data Quality. Decoding Digital Authoritarianism.

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(2022). Documenting Data Production Processes. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 6(CSCW2).

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(2022). The Data-Production Dispositif. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 6(CSCW2).

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(2022). Embedded Reproduction in Platform Data Work. Information, Communication & Society, 25(6).

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(2022). Studying Up Machine Learning Data. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 6 (GROUP).

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(2021). We Haven’t Gone Paperless Yet. AIES ‘21: Proceedings of the 2021 AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society.

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(2021). Why AI Needs Ethics From Below. AI Now Institute.

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(2020). The Future of Work Is Here. Ethics in Context, 56.

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(2020). Platform Labour Discourse. Democratic Communiqué, 29(1).

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(2019). The Platformization of Labor and Society. Society and the Internet, Vol. 2.

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