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Shipt’s algorithm squeezed gig workers, who fought back

spectrum.ieee.org

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Re: Shipt’s algorithm squeezed gig workers, who fought back

#61

Post by tux1968 »

Ekaros wrote: post #19
londons_explore wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> choose whether or not they want to accept an order." If the app shows clearly what needs to be done (shop, order list, miles driven), and the pay the worker will earn, and asks if they want to accept, then IMO that's fine. The business can set those offers however they like, even using a random number generator if they want, and IMO it's morally fine.

I think reasonable thing here would also allow contractors send counter offer. Maybe 10x 100x or 1000x. Then it would be up to side ordering to accept or reject one of those.

And if the company makes it a policy to never accept any counteroffer (which is legal and fair), you're back to the same system, without that feature existing.

Re: Shipt’s algorithm squeezed gig workers, who fought back

#62

Post by Ekaros »

tux1968 wrote: post #61
Ekaros wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think reasonable thing here would also allow contractors send counter offer. Maybe 10x 100x or 1000x. Then it would be up to side ordering to accept or reject one of those.

And if the company makes it a policy to never accept any counteroffer (which is legal and fair), you're back to the same system, without that feature existing.

Why would company here care. They are just a platform. Does Ebay or Amazon care what prices their sellers set?

Re: Shipt’s algorithm squeezed gig workers, who fought back

#63

Post by randomdata »

braza wrote: post #22
febeling wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had similar thoughts. But let's not overlook the information asymmetry, which contributed to the dissatisfaction. I don't want to live in a world which is controlled unilaterally, and intransparently by a group of people who assume they have a full picture of the situation and assume they understand moral completely, and also don't think it necessary to explain how they think so highly of themselves.

> I don't want to live in a world which is controlled unilaterally, and intransparently by a group of people who assume they have a full picture of the situation and assume they understand moral completely I have thought about this topic for a while at the time that I worked with Law data (e.g. Family Law and Military Law), and I just came to the conclusion that several societal institutions and it's agents are inher…

> a human making the final call on top of a given option would need to explain and rationally explain its decision.

To who? What you describe does not seem much different than the representation governments most of us here are accustomed to, other than the algorithm eases some day-to-day work required of the constituents. Already nobody cares, and no doubt would care even less if they could let an algorithm let them be even less involved.

Re: Shipt’s algorithm squeezed gig workers, who fought back

#64

Post by lotsofpulp »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #45
robertlagrant wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I suspect that the government needs to know what to tax, and obfuscated pay, means obfuscated taxes. You're taxed on what you're paid. The government doesn't do a parallel calculation and tax you on that.

But what you don’t get paid, the company keeps, and it may come under different tax rules. My experience is that governments are quite interested in where the money goes.

What you don’t get paid is not pay.

That is money that leaves the employer’s account and goes into the employee’s account (or government’s account for tax withholding).

I don’t see how this can be obfuscated.

Re: Shipt’s algorithm squeezed gig workers, who fought back

#65

Post by hprotagonist »

braza wrote: post #22
febeling wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had similar thoughts. But let's not overlook the information asymmetry, which contributed to the dissatisfaction. I don't want to live in a world which is controlled unilaterally, and intransparently by a group of people who assume they have a full picture of the situation and assume they understand moral completely, and also don't think it necessary to explain how they think so highly of themselves.

> I don't want to live in a world which is controlled unilaterally, and intransparently by a group of people who assume they have a full picture of the situation and assume they understand moral completely I have thought about this topic for a while at the time that I worked with Law data (e.g. Family Law and Military Law), and I just came to the conclusion that several societal institutions and it's agents are inher…

I would like to have a more algorithmic society with human in the loop calling the final shots and placing the rationale on top

Let’s re-audit the algorithm regularly; say, perhaps, a central committee revisits and revises the plan every 5 years?

Re: Shipt’s algorithm squeezed gig workers, who fought back

#66

Post by robertlagrant »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #45
robertlagrant wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I suspect that the government needs to know what to tax, and obfuscated pay, means obfuscated taxes. You're taxed on what you're paid. The government doesn't do a parallel calculation and tax you on that.

But what you don’t get paid, the company keeps, and it may come under different tax rules. My experience is that governments are quite interested in where the money goes.

Yes, but how is this relevant. That is also not calculated based on a pay formula. It's reported.

Re: Shipt’s algorithm squeezed gig workers, who fought back

#68

Post by fallingfrog »

“There’s no technical reason why these algorithms need to be black boxes; the real reason is to maintain the power structure.”

I’m kind of amazed that the article has the courage to say this out loud. The New York Times or any mainstream publication would never have been so honest.

If anything they would have said some weasel words like “some ex-associates of shipt have complained that the app’s compensation system is unfair.” Rather than just blurt out the truth, which is that it’s unfair by design because the owners of the app want to maintain a certain power relationship. It’s the kind of thing that everyone knows but is not allowed to say in printed form.

Re: Shipt’s algorithm squeezed gig workers, who fought back

#69

Post by vundercind »

Ekaros wrote: post #62
tux1968 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if the company makes it a policy to never accept any counteroffer (which is legal and fair), you're back to the same system, without that feature existing.

Why would company here care. They are just a platform. Does Ebay or Amazon care what prices their sellers set?

Amazon cares. Steam cares. Dunno about eBay.

Platforms sometimes care—by which I mean, achieve a market position that means sellers can’t afford not to use them, then leverage that power to force lots and lots of weaker people and entities to do what they want, possibly causing higher lowest-prices in the overall market in the process, so, also hurting buyers.

Re: Shipt’s algorithm squeezed gig workers, who fought back

#70

Post by toss1 »

mft_ wrote: post #29
febeling wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had similar thoughts. But let's not overlook the information asymmetry, which contributed to the dissatisfaction. I don't want to live in a world which is controlled unilaterally, and intransparently by a group of people who assume they have a full picture of the situation and assume they understand moral completely, and also don't think it necessary to explain how they think so highly of themselves.

It's an interesting question, as we have a spectrum from 'little to no transparency' through to 'full transparency' (which is pretty rare), and in the middle sits the usual approach of 'communications-team-led messaged quasi-transparency'. Difficult to know (without more info) where Shipt would have appeared on this spectrum, but given the issue, they're probably somewhere towards the 'insufficient transparency' end.…

YES.

If Shipt is actually trying to incentivize better performance, it seems the best way is to be completely transparent about the rewards algorithm. "Short high-value trips are now somewhat de-rated, and trips requiring more effort now have improved rewards, specifically ..." or whatever.

This "communications team" approach did everyone a disservice if Shipt mgt were really trying to improve results.

OTOH, if the actual goal was to screw workers harder, they accomplished that, as here ate arguments on HN about how this could be good for the workers, thus successfully obfuscating the goal of screw-the-workers.

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