Full Description
What effect do robots, algorithms, and online platforms have on the world of work? Using case studies and examples from across the EU, the UK, and the US, this book provides a compass to navigate this technological transformation as well as the regulatory options available, and proposes a new map for the era of radical digital advancements.
From platform work to the gig-economy and the impact of artificial intelligence, algorithmic management, and digital surveillance on workplaces, technology has overwhelming consequences for everyone's lives, reshaping the labour market and straining social institutions. Contrary to preliminary analyses forecasting the threat of human work obsolescence, the book demonstrates that digital tools are more likely to replace managerial roles and intensify organisational processes in workplaces, rather than opening the way for mass job displacement.
Can flexibility and protection be reconciled so that legal frameworks uphold innovation? How can we address the pervasive power of AI-enabled monitoring? How likely is it that the gig-economy model will emerge as a new organisational paradigm across sectors? And what can social partners and political players do to adopt effective regulation?
Technology is never neutral. It can and must be governed, to ensure that progress favours the many. Digital transformation can be an essential ally, from the warehouse to the office, but it must be tested in terms of social and political sustainability, not only through the lenses of economic convenience. Your Boss Is an Algorithm offers a guide to explore these new scenarios, their promises, and perils.
Contents
Introduction
1. Navigating Uncharted Waters
I. A Future Without Work? Raining on the 'Full Automation' Parade
A. The 'Robocalypse' is Postponed to a Later Date
II. The Digital is Political. Adopting a 'Human in Command' Approach
2. A Changing Labour Market
I. The Consequences for the 'Jobs that Remain'
II. Technology at Work
A. Smart Robots, IoT and Manufacturing: Mind the Machines with Minds
B. Remote Work, Out of Sight and Out of Place? Beyond the Pandemic Panopticon
C. Selective Affinities: Matchmaking is the New Recruiting
III. Work at the Service of Technology
A. 'People are Numbers': Count or be Counted
B. Working under the Algorithmic Boss
C. Beating AI at its Own Game
3. Social Rights in the Digital Age
I. What We Talk About When We Talk About 'Platform Work' (And Why Do We Talk About it So Much?)
II. 'What is Mine is Yours'. Doublespeak and the Mythology of Sharing
A. Workers on Tap and Untapped Appetites
B. The Platform Paradigm, Rethinking the Master-Server Dialectic
C. The European Way: Strengthening the Social Dimension Step by Step
III. Labour Law between Obsolescence and Resistance
A. Regulation, Flexibility and the 'Spirit' of Innovation
B. Moving Towards a Universal Model of Protection for Modern Times?
C. The Big Family of Non-Standard Forms of Employment
Conclusions: A Job Well Done
I. Future-Proof Labour Law
A. Universal Basic Income, Radical Measures in Search of Sustainability
B. Collective Voice versus Digital Despotism: Negotiating the Algorithm
C. And They Lived Happily and Connected Ever after: Saving the Digital Transformation from Itself
