How companies get inside gig workers' heads with 'algorithmic wage discrimination'

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The rise of artificial intelligence allows some large companies to pay workers different amounts to do the same work, a new research report alleges.

Another driver for Uber, Domingo, said he had completed 95 of the 96 trips he needed to secure a $100 bonus. Despite being located in a busy part of town, he had to wait 45 minutes to secure his final ride and earn the $100 he'd been counting on to pay for groceries. He believes Uber was baiting him to work longer.

"It feels like the algorithm is turned against you. There was a night at the end of one of week, if felt like the algorithm was punishing me. I had 95 out of 96 rides for a $100 bonus… it was ten o'clock at night in a popular area. It took me 45 min in a popular area to get that last ride," he told Prof. Dubal."The algorithm was moving past me to get to people who weren't closer to their bonus. No way to verify that, but that's what it felt like was happening.

She said that this kind of insight into how workers think, combined with the availability of other information like credit data, or how much a given worker might owe in rent, could lead to"an extraordinarily controlled economy where the people in control are in the firms and no one else." It could undo decades of social and labor movements advocating for equal pay for equal work, she added.

"It's really scary, and this is how you get retrenchment — a rolling back of worker rights — through a new cultural sense of what's OK and what's not OK," she said.

 

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Isn’t it better when people have the opportunity to get paid more?

'alleges' doing a metric ton of labor here. The evidence is long established. I know, because I live it. Do better, MeganCerullo. We got enough working against us.

unprecedented

Clearly the majority of people commenting on this thread didn't read the f****** article because if they had they will see they're talking about contractors working for the gig economy.

The whole AI things is very interesting & yet extremely nerve wracking. Pump the brakes on this everybody.

Pretty sure this is a bad idea and will also bring violence to advertisers and law offices everywhere

unprecedented

wow news

For the very first time

Men have always been paid more than women. They have never needed AI to cheat employees in the past.

Wow. Breaking news. If this was reported after the first company on earth had more than one employee.

Have you guys ever talked to a worker?

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