A researcher is driven 5000 miles with Uber and says The drivers are in the clutches of opaque Algorithms. The mean pressure, fear, and Manipulation.
Jannis Brühl, Berlin Jannis Brühl
Jannis Brühl, born in Nuremberg, is head of the digital Department. Studied politics and American studies in Erlangen, Germany and Portland, Oregon. Internship at SZ.de, then staff in the Economics Department. Won with the SZ-volunteers of the guard price of German daily press for the project “weapons in Germany”. In 2013, Arthur F. Burns-fellow the editors of ProPublica in New York. By 2015, a correspondent for the North Rhine-Westphalia in Cologne and Düsseldorf.
on Twitter, send an E-Mail
What will follow, if the boss is a machine? For several million people this is already the case, says Alex Rosenblat. You work for Algorithms – that of the car service Apps Uber and Lyft. For the driver, the: continuous monitoring, automated Manipulation and the constant threat of means may not work, without knowing why. The canadian Ethnographer is a lot of “geubert”. Very much. 5000 miles in three years ‘ time, in 25 cities of the USA and Canada. She has interviewed 125 driver. Their findings about the main people in the “Gig Economy” in their book, “cross country” on the voice this week on the digital conference Republica in Berlin.
The Uber-model is a foretaste of a future in the Algorithms, people say, where you should stop when your income again and again, up or down, and again and again, through a continuous fire of incentives to bring. “Uber is able to manipulate the working conditions of the drivers and the prices.” The company to do so, as his App is just a technical tool, “such as a credit card – but the technology is not neutral”. The “algorithmic Man” in cross-country has long been a reality.
Alex Rosenblat is working at the Data & Society Institute in New York.
(photo: oH)
{TRANS promise, according to Rosenblat: We scale entrepreneurship, with us, everyone can ascend into the middle class. The stories, collected by Rosenblat, but they are not hero stories. It tells the story of Fernando, not spent $ 42 000 for a new car, because Uber is allowed in the Year of his car – only to this rule to Fernando’s Start to fall. Now he is ashamed in front of his family, he brings thanks to reduced driver’s share of the ticket price less money home.
Especially bad is the “Puke-layer”
By Raul from New York, who drove eight to nine hours a day – up to About his share of the cut. Since then, he had to work 12 to 14 hours a day. Nathan, a Lyft driver. He has treated Traumatized – for him, the small talk with the passengers to a compensation of the pressures in his main Job. Of the social worker, on his fourth day of work, a teenager, hit in the face, and then began to – he was in the car, just safer. Sexual harassment of drivers is still an issue, says Rosenblat. Some women avoided the night-time “Puke-layer”, in the drunk men in the car mess up or bother you. Who is wise, installed a camera to film what happens in the car. Many nevertheless appreciate the freedom that brings. Again and again, Rosenblat heard of low-wage earners, so they could see their children more often than in Jobs with shift work.
the driver put a non – transparent incentive and sanction system. The App is not monitored, how often do you take ordered rides, how you accelerate and brake. The Uber-System is causing Stress. “The drivers often go home full of nervousness, whether or not a customer has rated poorly, even if it’s just the weather was, the more difficult the journey.” The worst punishment is called “deactivation”. The average rating by passengers to be bad, may not offer the driver for his services.
most absurd reasoning, of Uber: The drivers are like the passengers only “customer” of the company, after all they are licensed for a fee {TRANS Software. Many drivers with a Problem need to report to the “customer service”. Then an E-Mail Ping-Pong with employees in the Philippines, often send text modules begins. In Germany, Uber has failed in his mediation of the drivers with private cars to the authorities and the courts. This Friday, Uber is gone to the exchange and has taken eight billion dollars. Rosenblat told, have often contradicted – but offered a Job to research for the company itself. She decided to write the book. Your Uber could not talk.
