Living with Algorithms: Work, Technology, and the Rise of a Billion-dollar Startup

• In Event: 413 - Section on Organizations, Occupations and Work Refereed Roundtable Session. Table 01. Culture and Organizations
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 17. Occupations and Professions

Abstract

Are computers coming for our jobs? Recent years have brought a resurgence of interest in the implications of technological innovation for the future of work. But we still know remarkably little about how organizations create and implement the innovative software algorithms that may be poised to reshape the American economy. This study draws on 19 months of participant-observation research at AllDone, a startup company that ran an online market for local services. I found that, at AllDone, software algorithms and routinized human labor were frequently co-constitutive rather than mutually exclusive. Human workers substituted for or supported computer code to address three limitations of software algorithms: their relatively high cost and inflexibility; the difficulty of teaching software to perform tasks that require humans’ cultural fluencies; and their inability to manage customers’ feelings. I demonstrate how the composition of labor supporting software shifted over time as the organization’s priorities and resources changed. This study suggests that researchers must examine the organizational contexts in which algorithms are developed and deployed to shed light on the dynamics of work and technology in the digital age.

Author

• Benjamin James Shestakofsky, University of California, Berkeley