Delivery algorithms capture workers’ tacit route knowledge and render them replaceable.

Evidence

The reason why we are strong here is the professional skill of the workers. There are workers who are strongly aware of their know-how, an identity element that existed before the union and that they ask the union to represent. This is the point of the dispute opened with the Amazon algorithm. The point is that the workers’ know-how faces an algorithm which, in the best case scenario, tells them what to do and, in the worst case scenario, steals their job. Because in the best case scenario the algorithm doesn’t know the territory-whether there’s a porter in a building who facilitates the delivery process, if there’s an old lady who can or cannot open the door, and so on-that is the human component which the worker is able to read. This relation with the territory and with the customers is not taken into consideration by the algorithm. This worsens the quality of the work and of the service. In the worst case scenario, the algorithm steals the job because it incorporates a series of data while the workers is following a new route-a quicker one-because it is linked to his direct experience. Therefore, the worker is giving information and data to the algorithm, which is recording them. In this way, while processing this information, the algorithm not only appropriates the knowledge of the worker, but it also makes him replaceable because he can be substituted in the future, maybe by a robot or simply by another worker. This is all professional skill, which is not paid. (ID1) The Milanese drivers are aware that their knowledge of the urban space and, consequently, of delivery routes is a key aspect of their “working knowledge” that algorithmic systems of control can monitor and eventually incorporate (Kusterer 1978; Edwards and Ramirez 2016). — Donatella della Porta et al., Mobilizing Against the Odds, 102

Categorization

• SEED: An angle for an article on how algorithmic monitoring expropriates human spatial/tacit knowledge—workers feed the system that de-skills them.
• FICTION: The image of workers unknowingly training the algorithm that will replace them is a ripe dystopian/techno-thriller premise.
• XREF: connects to: Amazon drivers’ specific skills both enabled union revival and pushed unions toward militant tactics. — Donatella della Porta et al., Mobilizing Against the Odds: Solidarity…, 105; Microtask workers train the AI systems that will replace them — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 217; Algorithmic managers have replaced human bosses in key sectors — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 326 (+5 more)

Related

• Algorithmic managers have replaced human bosses in key sectors (similarity 0.86)
• Algorithms have absorbed managers’ organizational functions in platform work (similarity 0.79)
• Workers resist algorithmic control by asserting mastery over their trade. (similarity 0.79)
• Algorithms on factory floors merely continue Taylorist machine pacing of workers (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Workers build the very technology that will replace them. #corroborates (0.90) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 246
• Microtask workers train the AI systems that will replace them #expands (0.85) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 217
• Algorithmic managers have replaced human bosses in key sectors #expands (0.75) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 326
• AI reduces job quality by devaluing human labor. #expands (0.75) — Emily M. Bender, Alex Hanna, The AI Con- How to Fight Big Tech’s…, 126
• Monitoring algorithms replace managers in enforcing work intensity #corroborates (0.72) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 117