Dominique A. Montiel Valle

The University of Texas at Austin, Austin College

Papers

Total Citations

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About

Dominique A. Montiel Valle is a critical scholar of labor, technology, and inequality, whose research exposes the hidden human work behind artificial intelligence and automation. Her work centers on how frontline workers—particularly those in essential and marginalized roles—are tasked with repairing, maintaining, and compensating for the failures of AI systems. In her landmark 2023 paper, *"Patchwork: The Hidden, Human Labor of AI Integration within Essential Work"* (57 citations), she draws on ethnographic fieldwork in U.S. waste labor sites to reveal how workers perform invisible, often precarious labor to make AI function during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her 2024 follow-up, *"Dis//assemblages of AI: repair labor and resistance in the automated workplace"* (3 citations), extends this analysis by theorizing breakdown and repair as sites of both exploitation and resistance, drawing on feminist science and technology studies. Montiel Valle’s contributions are foundational to understanding AI not as a seamless optimization tool, but as a sociotechnical system sustained by human effort. Her work is essential reading for scholars of labor, technology, and social justice, and has quickly shaped debates on algorithmic management and the future of work.