Inside the Invisible Cage: How Algorithms Control Workers - Paperback

by Hatim Rahman (Author)

In a world increasingly run by algorithms and artificial intelligence, Hatim Rahman traces how organizations are using algorithms to control workers in an "invisible cage."

Inside the Invisible Cage uses unique longitudinal data to investigate how digital labor platforms use algorithms to dictate the actions of high-skilled workers by determining accepted behaviors, work opportunities, and even success. As Hatim Rahman explains, employers can use algorithms to shift rules and guidelines without notice, explanation, or recourse for workers. The invisible cage signals a profound shift in the way markets and organizations categorize and ultimately control people.

Unlike previous forms of labor control, the invisible cage is ubiquitous, yet it is also opaque and shifting, which makes breaking free from it difficult for workers. This book traces how the invisible cage was developed over time and the implications it has for the spread of new technology, such as generative artificial intelligence. Inside the Invisible Cage also provides organizations, workers, and policymakers with insights on how to ensure the future of work has truly equitable, mutually beneficial outcomes.

Back Jacket

Few issues are more important than how algorithms, and algorithmic decision-making, are taking over more aspects of our lives. Inside the Invisible Cage probes the important context of online labor market platforms, and the workers whose livelihoods depend on them. Relying on, among other sources, unusually detailed qualitative data, Hatim Rahman makes clear how algorithms have made entirely new forms of control and opacity by organizations possible. A thoughtful, important, and perhaps even necessary work.--Mario L. Small, Quetelet Professor of Social Science at Columbia University

"Inside the Invisible Cage makes a compelling, well-researched, and troubling case that millions of highly skilled gig workers are rated and ranked by algorithms that are bewildering, ever-shifting, and often poor reflections of their talents and motivations. Rahman documents how such workers are stymied and stressed by such mysterious evaluations and why the platform companies benefit from such opaqueness. The closing chapters of this beautifully written gem provide humane and effective solutions for skilled workers who use these platforms, leaders of platform companies, and policy makers who seek to balance the interests of such workers and companies."--Robert I. Sutton, Professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University and New York Times bestselling author of eight books including Good Boss, Bad Boss, The No Asshole Rule, Scaling Up Excellence (with Huggy Rao), and The Friction Project (with Huggy Rao)

"An impactful exploration of the pervasive influence of algorithms on high-skilled online labor markets. This book unveils the invisible cage of control. A must-read!"--Tsedal Neeley, Naylor Fitzhugh Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and coauthor of The Digital Mindset: What It Really Takes to Thrive in the Age of Data, Algorithms, and AI

"What if a dystopian future in which algorithms controlled our working lives had already arrived but no one noticed? Inside the Invisible Cage reveals that this future is already here in platform work. Rahman's perceptive and meticulously documented book illuminates a hidden peril lurking in our new age of algorithms."--David H. Autor, Ford Professor of Economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology

"This book promises to be a ground-breaking treatment of digital labor platforms, significantly shaping the intellectual discourse about this phenomenon for years to come. It is a must-read for practitioners and policy makers who want to learn from the lived experience of highly skilled gig workers as has been intensely and rigorously studied by Rahman."--Susan Scott, Professor of Information Systems and Innovation at the London School of Economics and Political Science

"Inside the Invisible Cage is packed with compelling insights grounded in fine-grained empirical data. Rahman provides readers with powerful new ways to understand how online platforms exert control over high-skilled workers, significantly impacting their lives and their livelihoods. This is a must-read for those interested in making sense of the changing world of work."--David Pedulla, Professor of Sociology and Public Policy at Harvard University and author of Making the Cut: Hiring Decisions, Bias, and the Consequences of Nonstandard, Mismatched, and Precarious Employment

Author Biography

Hatim A. Rahman is an award-winning assistant professor at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.