The risks of algorithmic discrimination and bias have received much attention and scrutiny, and rightly so. Yet there is another more insidious side-effect of our increasingly AI-powered society — the systematic inequality created by the changing nature of work itself. We fear a future where robots take our jobs, but what happens when a significant portion of the workforce ends up in algorithmically managed jobs with little future and few possibilities for advancement?
Algorithms Are Making Economic Inequality Worse
AI-powered organizations are being run by a small cohort of highly paid employees and millions of low-paid workers.
October 22, 2020
HBR Staff/Oleksandr Shchus/Getty Images
Summary.
There is a code ceiling that prevents career advancement — irrespective of gender or race — because, in an AI-powered organization, junior employees and freelancers rarely interact with other human co-workers. Instead, they are managed by algorithms. As a result, a global, low-paid, algorithmic workforce is emerging. You will increasingly find a gap between top executives and an outer fringe of transient workers, even within organizations. Whether in retail or financial services, logistics or manufacturing, AI-powered organizations are being run by a small cohort of highly paid employees, supported by sophisticated automation and potentially millions of algorithmically managed, low-paid freelancers at the periphery. Job polarization is only part of the problem. What we should really fear is the algorithmic inequality trap that results from these algorithmic feedback loops.