Imaginaries of Precarity: Negotiating Generative AI in Indonesia’s Cultural and Creative Labor

Setianto, Yearry Panji (2026) Imaginaries of Precarity: Negotiating Generative AI in Indonesia’s Cultural and Creative Labor. AI & Society, 41 (6). pp. 5631-5644. ISSN 1435-5655

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Abstract

This paper examines how cultural and creative workers in Indonesia negotiate the adoption of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) under conditions of labor precarity. Drawing on sociotechnical imaginaries and scholarship on precarious creative labor, the study explores how workers interpret, appropriate, and constrain GenAI in their everyday practices. The research adopts a Participatory Action Research (PAR) approach in collaboration with a creative workers’ union, Serikat Sindikasi, combining focus group discussions, in-depth interviews, and a feedback workshop involving 40 participants across multiple subsectors. The findings identify three sociotechnical imaginaries: GenAI as a bounded assistant, through which workers seek to maintain authorship and professional identity; GenAI as an engine of acceleration, intensifying productivity demands and reshaping temporal expectations; and GenAI as a contested system of governance, raising concerns about fairness, ownership, and regulation. Together, these imaginaries show that GenAI adoption is deeply shaped by existing labor insecurities. The paper argues that workers’ selective engagement with GenAI reflects efforts to navigate precarity, underscoring the need for context-sensitive, labor-centered approaches to AI governance in the Global South.

Item Type:	Article
Creators:	Setianto, Yearry Panji
Contributors:
Keywords:	Artificial intelligence; Cultural and creative industry; Indonesia; Precarious labor; Sociotechnical imaginaries
Subjects:	300 Social Sciences > 330 Economics > 331 Labor Economics
Sustainable Development Goals:	Goal 08. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and work for all Goal 09. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
Divisions:	Faculty of Communication > Digital Journalism
Date Deposited:	31 Aug 2026 09:37
URI:	https://kc.umn.ac.id/id/eprint/49409

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