In collaboration with the ILO (International Labour Organization), ACM SIGCAS (the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Computers and Society), and Yale University, DiPLab is proud to share the call for papers of the 9th annual conference of the International Network on Digital Labor. INDL-9 will take place from September 9 to 11, 2026 and, for the first time, will be hosted at the headquarters of the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Geneva. The deadline for abstract submissions is April 30, 2026 (via the Sciencesconf platform). Submit Your Abstract We aim for this call to reach every scholar, practitioner, and organizer working on digital labor and AI. INDL conferences have consistently provided a space where rigorous research intersects with real-world practice, and where interdisciplinary dialogue is not only encouraged but expected. With this ninth edition, we aim to raise the bar even higher.Hosting our conference at the ILO — the United Nations agency at the heart of global labor governance — lends this edition a singular importance. This is a moment of convergence for our field and a unique opportunity to deepen our collective commitment by connecting scholarship with workers’ advocacy and global policy debates. > “AI Supply Chains: Building an Interdisciplinary Research Agenda for AI and > Labor” > > Theme of this edition This edition seeks contributions that explore: •  Transparency and traceability in AI models •  Working conditions and occupational safety and health of human-in-the-loop workers •  Best practices in ethical AI and corporate social responsibility •  Social dialogue in AI-mediated work •  Organizational, legal, and financial perspectives on investment in ethical AI •  Regulatory compliance, including developments such as the EU AI Act •  Proposals for genuinely human-centric AI supply chains •  Ecological sustainability of AI infrastructure We also warmly welcome submissions on themes that have defined and strengthened our community over the years, including (but not limited to): algorithmic management and workers’ resistance, platform cooperativism and alternative business models, legal and institutional responses to platform labor, and the gendered dimensions of digital labor.Please consider submitting your work and, above all, help us spread the word. See you in Geneva! Read the Full Call for Papers This edition of the INDL conference is organized through a collaborative partnership between DiPLab (Digital Platform Labor), the ILO (International Labour Organization), ACM SIGCAS (the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Computers and Society), and Yale University.

Video of the seminar “AI and Water Justice: Data Centres as Sites of Struggle”, featuring our colleague Nicolas Diaz Bejarano who is working with DiPLab and the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile on our common project SEED: Social and Environmental Effects of Data connectivity: Hybrid ecologies of transoceanic cables and data centers in Chile and France. Nicolás Diaz Bejarano is an architect (Universidad de los Andes, Colombia), researcher, lecturer and PhD candidate in Architecture, Design and Urban Studies at UC Chile. Currently, Nicolas is a doctoral researcher at the Millennium Nucleus: Future of Artificial Intelligence Research (FAIR), where he studies hyperscale data centers exploring how society intertwines with digital data matter in local territories. In 2023, Nicolas won the CCA “Architecture as Public concern” 2023 fellowship with Marina Otero Verzier and Serena Dambrosio for exploring environmental justice of data centers in Quilicura, Chile. In 2025, he was co-curator of the Chilean Pavilion – Reflective Intelligences – at the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale with Linda Schilling and Serena Dambrosio and a member of the ECOS-ANID collaboration project SEED: Social and Environmental Effects of Data connectivity: Hybrid ecologies of transoceanic cables and data centers in Chile and France.

The European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) hosted the conference “Future of Work” in Brussels on February 10-11, 2026, bringing together researchers, policymakers, and practitioners to examine how contemporary transformations are reshaping the world of work. Among the contributions was a presentation by DiPLab’s Paola Tubaro, who offered crucial insights into the relationship between artificial intelligence and job quality. Tubaro’s presentation centered on a forthcoming chapter titled “What is AI doing to Job Quality? Platformization, Fissured Workplaces and Dispersion,” co-authored with Antonio Casilli. This work will appear in the new edited volume Job Quality in a Turbulent Era, edited by Janine Leschke and Agnieszka Piasna and published by Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd. The chapter’s key intervention challenges a common assumption in discussions about AI and work: that technology alone determines outcomes for workers. As Tubaro emphasized during her presentation, AI does not operate in a vacuum. Instead, its impacts on job quality emerge from the broader political economy and organizational contexts in which these technologies are introduced and deployed. The chapter explores three interconnected phenomena transforming contemporary work: * Platformization: The expansion of platform-based work arrangements that mediate labor through digital technologies, creating new forms of employment relationships and power dynamics. * Fissured Workplaces: The fragmentation of traditional employment structures, where work is increasingly outsourced, subcontracted, or restructured in ways that distance workers from the organizations that benefit from their labor. * Dispersion: The geographic and organizational scattering of work processes, enabled by digital technologies but shaped by strategic choices about how to organize production and manage labor. The conference featured a preview of the new book on job quality, with editors Leschke and Piasna exploring how AI, digitalisation, and decarbonisation are reshaping work organization and affecting core components of job quality—not through technological inevitability, but through deliberate choices made by organizations and policymakers. Dr. Funda Ustek Spilda complemented these discussions with concrete insights on datafication and surveillance practices at companies like Sama and Amazon UK, demonstrating how these dynamics transform work on the ground. Dr. Massimo Mensi, serving as discussant, reinforced a crucial theme: governance choices matter more than the technology itself. He also challenged the common framing of training as a cost, arguing instead that it should be understood as an investment in workers and work quality. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As part of our DiPLab seminar, we are delighted to welcome our friend and colleague, Dr. Funda Ustek Spilda, Senior Lecturer and South East Asia Programmes Lead at the Department of Digital Humanities, King’s College London, on 20 February 2026 at 3:00 pm CET. The seminar will be held in person at ISC-PIF (Institut des Systèmes Complexes – Paris Île de France), 113 rue Nationale, 75013 Paris. To register, click on the button below and fill out the form. The seminar is free to attend. Register here THE DIGITAL ASSEMBLY LINE: UPGRADING DATA WORK WITHIN THE GLOBAL PRODUCTION NETWORKS OF AI This paper investigates how service-based labour practices in data work sites, such as data labelling and content moderation, contribute to development within global production networks (GPNs). Service-based labour practices are gaining wider attention as governments in the Global South actively promote data services as a pathway to economic growth and seek integration to digital value chains. Against this background, the paper examines labour dynamics and managerial perspectives in data work, analysing their implications for economic and social development across diverse geographies. Drawing on upgrading literature within the GPN framework, the paper investigates the potential of service nodes to achieve economic, social and functional upgrading. The findings underscore the difficulties service nodes face in achieving upgrading due to structural dependencies and power asymmetries within the GPNs. Peripheral economies encounter additional barriers, including inadequate infrastructure, skill shortages and investment gaps. The study highlights the urgent need for structural reforms and collective action to counteract systemic inequalities in global production networks, paving the way for a more equitable integration of service-based labour into the global digital economy. Dr. Funda Ustek Spilda is a Senior Lecturer and South East Asia Programmes Lead at the Department of Digital Humanities, King’s College London. She holds a DPhil in Sociology from the University of Oxford & St. Cross College, and has held various research positions at Goldsmiths, University of London (ARITHMUS), London School of Economics and Political Science (VIRT-EU), and the Oxford Internet Institute & University of Oxford (Fairwork). She studies topics related to labour, care, work and employment in the digital economy, from an ethics, justice and fairness perspective. Her full list of publications could be accessed at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/funda.ustek/