Algorithmic managers have replaced human bosses in key sectors

Evidence

Algorithms have already replaced bosses in the transport, deliveries and warehousing sectors. And workers forced to work for these algorithms find themselves in a modernist nightmare: some non-corporeal entity that not only lacks but is actually incapable of human empathy allocates them work at a rate of its choosing before monitoring their response times. Released from any of the qualms even inhumane humans harbour, the algo-bosses are at liberty to reduce the workers’ paid hours, to increase their tempo to insanity-inducing levels, or to turn them out onto the street for ‘inefficiency’. At that point, the workers sacked by the algorithm are thrown into a Kafkaesque spiral, unable to speak to a human capable of explaining why they were fired. — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 326

Categorization

• SEED: Article angle: ‘No one to appeal to’ — the Kafkaesque experience of being fired by an algorithm with no human accountable, as a distinguishing feature of algorithmic management.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 326
• XREF: connects to: Monitoring algorithms replace managers in enforcing work intensity — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism: An Intervention, 117; Delivery algorithms capture workers’ tacit route knowledge and render them replaceable. — Donatella della Porta et al., Mobilizing Against the Odds: Solidarity…, 102; Workplace algorithmic control differs only superficially from mechanical Taylorism — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 324 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Monitoring algorithms replace managers in enforcing work intensity #corroborates (0.95) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 117