Riding the Algorithm: Repurposing delivery workers’ data into a digital commons
Centre for Research Architecture (Goldsmiths) in collaboration with International Workers of Great Britain (London) / UK
An increasing number of jobs, especially in food delivery, are overseen and organised remotely by what is defined as management algorithms. This research examines how in algorithmic management, delivery workers are engaged in a process of constant improvement of production, under continuously evolving rules that are unknown to them. This is possible through the extraction of the data they generate, which (in)forms the production process and becomes capitalized by platform companies to attract investment. The aim of the project, then, is to propose an alternative exploration of the data generated by riders by developing a crowd-sourced app for delivery workers: Sabot. Sabot has been conceived in conversation with riders from South London and members of the International Workers of Great Britain (IWGB) union, and has the aim to subvert the information asymmetry between worker and algorithm. A riders’ app allows to create a digital commons, a real-time collective repository that can inform decisions, breakup riders’ isolation, leverage work conditions and contest the mechanisms of value extraction enabled by platform economy. The proposal goes beyond the demand of transparency to tech companies and understands that to reshape a system it’s necessary to engage with it. Download App
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