Surveillance Architecture of AI-Augmented Work
The surveillance architecture of AI-augmented work is the structural extension of management's observation capacity from physical activity through social performance to cognitive process itself. The factory floor, as Noble documented, was designed to make the worker's hands visible to the foreman. The open-plan office extended visibility to the worker's body and social performance. The AI-augmented workstation extends it to the worker's cognitive process — every prompt, every direction, every consideration now captured in interaction logs that management can access, analyze, and use for evaluation. The trajectory is continuous. Each transition has been presented as a collaboration improvement; each has also extended surveillance in ways that the presentation obscures.
In The You On AI Field Guide
Noble's research on the machine shop documented how the physical layout of production served management's interest in observation long before the term "surveillance" was in common use. The arrangement of machines followed sightline logic as well