Antonio Aloisi - Your Boss Is an Algorithm: Artificial Intelligence, Platform Work and Labour

YOUR BOSS IS AN ALGORITHM

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 everyones 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.

Your Boss Is an Algorithm

Artificial Intelligence, Platform
Work and Labour

Antonio Aloisi

and

Valerio De Stefano

HART PUBLISHING

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Originally published as Il tuo capo un algoritmo. Contro il lavoro disumano.

Copyright 2020 Gius. Laterza & Figli. All rights reserved.

English language translation Antonio Aloisi and Valerio De Stefano 2022

First published in Great Britain 2022

Antonio Aloisi and Valerio De Stefano have asserted their right under the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as Authors of this work.

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of the Open Government Licence v3.0 (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/
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All Eur-lex material used in the work is European Union,
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/, 19982022.

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2022934284

ISBN:PB:978-1-50995-318-9

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Despite being a thrilling section, acknowledgements are always written at the end of an energy-draining experience. The risk is that when creativity has been exhausted only clichd formulas come to the minds of the authors. While we cannot assure readers that we will be able to overcome this pitfall, we must confess that condensing our research, ideas and proposals in this book has been a privilege and a source of entertainment. Contrary to many academic tasks that may be very solitary, this journey has been a sociable one, and we are tremendously grateful for this.

This book was envisioned and written in Brussels, Madrid, Toronto, Geneva, Milan, Florence, Salento and Calabria. It owes much to the fresh air one can breathe in these places and, above all, to the friends, families and people that contribute to making them so welcoming. Without their support, we would have never had the strength and calm necessary to embark on such an adventure. Undoubtedly, this is no small thing: all this affection, perhaps even undeserved, is worth its weight in gold.

We must thank the institutions we belong(ed) to, respectively the IE Law School of IE University, Madrid, the Osgoode Hall Law School of York University, Toronto and (previously) the Catholic University of Leuven, in Belgium, for having generously stimulated and supported the research on the themes that are discussed in these pages. This book also benefited from insightful conversations with our talented colleagues, mentors, doctoral and university students and administrative staff whose contribution, sometimes not adequately recognised, has been decisive.

The research leading to this book project has received funding from the European Unions Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 893888 Boss Ex Machina. Mapping and understanding the technological transformation of managerial prerogatives in workplaces driven by machines, artificial intelligence and algorithms as well as from the Odysseus grant Employment rights and labour protection in the on-demand economy awarded by the FWO Research Foundation Flanders.

We would like to thank Stefano Liebman, the teacher who ignited our passion for labour law and encouraged us (and continues to do so) in a thoughtful and unusual way, having adopted freedom as an anti-dogmatic teaching method. Our gratitude should be extended to Maurizio Del Conte, Elena Gramano and Giovanni Gaudio.

Many thanks to the terrific team at Hart Publishing and, in particular, to Roberta Bassi, Rosemarie Mearns and Linda Staniford who supported us through every stage of the writing process. The credit for this publication also goes to our Italian publisher, Giuseppe Laterza, who patiently granted autonomy and companionship. Thanks to Claire Banyard and Lia Di Trapani, the editors who generously cleaned up any unclear passages, helping us to make even the most complex content accessible to a broad audience. Many thanks also to the anonymous reviewers who promoted the publication of the manuscript.

The most relentless editor was Giuliana Morabito, to whom our most sincere thanks go. Many sections are now enjoyable only thanks to Antonella Zarra, who graciously tolerated the fanatical devotion to this project. Nastazja Potocka-Sionek, Andrea Garnero, Gianluca Greco, Lorenzo Micheli, Loredana Carta and Isabella Notarangelo were among the first to read the manuscript, and offered their comments with wisdom, openness and friendship. A big thank you also goes to Silvana Sciarra, tutelary deity of all young(ish) Italian labour lawyers.