By Stuart Kerr, Technology Correspondent
🗓️ Published: 12 July 2025 | 🔁 Last updated: 12 July 2025
📩 Contact: liveaiwire@gmail.com | 📣 Follow @LiveAIWire
🔗 Author Bio: https://www.liveaiwire.com/p/to-liveaiwire-where-artificial.html
Beyond the Paycheck
The gig economy promised freedom. Choose your hours. Be your own boss. But in 2025, many workers are learning that the real boss might be an algorithm. Across ride-hailing apps, delivery platforms, and freelance marketplaces, artificial intelligence is increasingly calling the shots—deciding who gets work, when, and how much they’re paid.
At the heart of this transformation is algorithmic management. Platforms use AI to score worker performance, assign tasks, calculate pay, and even deactivate underperformers. While marketed as neutral and efficient, these systems are often opaque and unaccountable.
In The Automation Divide, we explored how AI can exacerbate inequality. Nowhere is that more visible than in gig work.
Invisible Bosses
According to the OECD, over 70% of major gig platforms now use some form of AI to manage workers. These systems monitor speed, location, customer feedback, and even facial expressions in some cases. The data feeds algorithms that rank workers and determine future opportunities.
But who sets the criteria? And what happens when algorithms make mistakes?
The MIT Sloan Review highlights concerns about fairness, bias, and lack of appeal mechanisms. Many workers don’t know how decisions are made or how to contest them. This undermines traditional labour protections.
As we discussed in The Silent Bias, AI systems reflect the assumptions of their designers. In gig work, this means codifying expectations around availability, politeness, and productivity that may penalise the most vulnerable.
Autonomy or Automation?
Gig platforms often frame their workers as entrepreneurs. But algorithmic nudging suggests otherwise. Apps send messages when demand spikes, reduce visibility for those who decline tasks, and introduce gamified incentives to keep people working longer.
The UK Parliament’s official research briefing warns that such practices blur the line between independent contracting and employment. If an algorithm dictates your behaviour, are you really self-employed?
This erosion of autonomy is not just theoretical. In Faith, Fraud, and Face Filters, we explored how trust systems built on AI scoring can shape access to markets and reputations. In the gig economy, they also shape livelihoods.
Digital Discrimination?
One major risk in algorithm-led gig work is bias. Facial recognition used to verify identity may misidentify users with darker skin tones. Behavioural metrics can disadvantage neurodivergent or disabled workers. AI doesn’t mean fair by default.
The ILO Mini Guide calls for international standards on transparency, fairness, and human oversight. It also warns that workers often have no idea how they are being evaluated—or by whom.
As with Synthetic Voices and Political Choice, once decisions are made by black-box systems, accountability becomes elusive. The risk isn’t just bad tech—it’s ungoverned power.
Platform Power and Policy Gaps
With algorithms holding the reins, governments are scrambling to catch up. As outlined in the Vanderbilt University global governance report, many existing labour laws assume a human boss and a fixed workplace.
But today’s gig workers operate in fragmented digital environments, ruled by opaque systems. These platforms are global, but protections are local—and often outdated.
The challenge is clear: AI is reshaping work faster than laws can adapt. Without reform, millions remain exposed to unstable incomes and digital exploitation.
A Different Future?
AI doesn’t have to mean control. When used ethically, it can empower workers—streamlining scheduling, improving safety, and protecting against client abuse. But this requires transparency, auditability, and worker voice.
The WEF Augmented Workforce Report outlines a vision of AI-enabled work where human dignity remains central. But realising that future depends on public pressure, policy innovation, and responsible design.
Gig workers aren’t just app users. They are people with families, dreams, and rights. If AI is to manage them, it must be held to human standards.
About the Author
Stuart Kerr is the Technology Correspondent at LiveAIWire. He writes about AI’s impact on infrastructure, governance, creativity, and power.
📩 Contact: liveaiwire@gmail.com | 📣 @LiveAIWire
