Uncanny Valley by Anna Wiener

 

In her mid-twenties, Anna Wiener is in New York City, working a low paid job in the publishing industry.  Everyone she knows is working the same kind of barely making it job as they check their safety net of parents wondering how long they could subsist as they 'paid their dues'.  When she has the chance to change her life and move to California and work in the technology industry, she jumps at the chance.

She works there for half a decade, cycling between several tech start-ups and more established technology companies.  Anna doesn't have technical skills; she isn't a programmer or a data scientist or a security guru.  She works in customer service, fielding calls for help, tracking down copyright infringements and checking company content boards for offensive and illegal content.  She is incredibly well paid compared to her NYC days and the culture is very different.  Employee structures are flat and perks abound.   Remote work is allowed and encouraged.

But there are drawbacks as well.  A higher salary doesn't mean much when all the technology money has made the real estate market so expensive that it is the rare person who doesn't have to have roommates well past the age that most people are on their own.  Perks don't mean much in work weeks that routinely are expected to be eighty to a hundred hours weekly.  Women are marginalized as are the non-tech employees.  The buzz word for compensation is meritocracy but it's strange how the merit all seems to reside in young, white males who look just like the founders of these young companies.

Uncanny Valley is a term used in the technology industry.  It refers to the fact that individuals respond more favorably to robots that appear human, but if the robot gets too human appearing, a revulsion sets in.  It is a metaphor for the technology industry that appears fascinating and desirable from the outside but is anxiety producing and barren from an insiders' view.  It is the casual data driven environment where every purchase and opinion is tracked and sold to companies so that they can better target their products and influence society.  It is a cautionary tale that only an insider can tell.  This book is recommended for readers of nonfiction and especially for those considering a career in technology.