"While the world holds its breath to see if the US tech industry can bring about human-level artificial intelligence - and therefore completely rewrite the social contract and economy - experts are warning current iterations of the tech are already remaking the workplace in insidious ways. This week, the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), a group representing nearly 45 million workers across 40 European countries, published a comprehensive report about the disturbing impact of algorithms that increasingly control the workplace."
"Ultimately, the ETUC guide identifies seven risks - or functions, depending on your point of view - that come from AI governance: discriminatory work assignments, fluctuating wages, loss of worker control, constant surveillance, unreasonable performance evaluations, automated punishment, and non-payment. "Algorithmic management is used to determine work allocation and pay in ways that are typically opaque and often discriminatory," the report reads. "Workers have to contend with intensive forms of surveillance which reduce autonomy and undermine privacy. Workers are evaluated in ways that are not transparent and with no opportunity for worker input.""
Algorithmic management increasingly governs work allocation, pay, surveillance, evaluation, and discipline across many workplaces. An early study found 79 percent of job sites across the EU and 90 percent in the US use at least one algorithmic management tool. These systems often operate opaquely and can produce discriminatory assignments, fluctuating wages, automated punishments, and non-payment. Intensive monitoring reduces worker autonomy and undermines privacy. Performance evaluations are frequently non-transparent and exclude worker input. Power dynamics shift toward employers as algorithmic governance limits worker control and legal or procedural recourse.
Read at Futurism
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