- Some companies use AI to pay workers "different amount for the same amount of work," per new research.
- Veena Dubal, a law professor at UC Hastings and the paper's author, calls this "algorithmic wage discrimination."
- As companies adopt AI, she's concerned these practices could become prevalent in other industries.
Gig workers are doing the same jobs for different pay, and this model could come to your workplace someday.
That's according to new research from Veena Dubal, a law professor at University of California Hastings, who drew upon six years and thousands of hours of interviews and observations with hundreds of Uber and Lyft drivers, many of whom worked for more than one gig platform.
According to Dubal, companies like Amazon and Uber have "massive data sets" on the contract workers using their delivery or rideshare platforms, including when they work, for how long, and what kind of pay they've taken for past jobs. These companies are able to utilize this data to "calculate the exact wage rates necessary to incentivize desired behaviors," she told the Los Angeles Times, a practice she calls "algorithmic wage discrimination."
"From Amazon to Uber to the healthcare sector, workers are being paid different amounts for the same amount of work that is conducted for the same amount of time," said Dubal, whose research was published in the Social Science Research Network in January and will be included in a forthcoming Columbia Law Review.
Dubal said these instances could take the form of a food delivery driver being offered a lower rate than another driver would have been — because the AI algorithm predicted the first driver would be more likely to accept that rate. If a driver tends to work until they hit a certain daily mark, say $100, she said the algorithm might offer them lower rates to keep the driver working longer.
"It's basically variable pay that's personalized to individuals based on what is really, really a lot of data that's accumulated on those workers while they're working," Dubal said.
One Uber driver Dubal interviewed, Domingo, recalled being one ride of short of unlocking a $100 bonus one evening, but then said he experienced 45 minutes of "dead time" in a popular area before he was able to get another ride.
"It feels like the algorithm is turned against you," he said, adding that it "literally feels like you're being punished by some unknown spiteful God."
Dubal described the alleged variable pay system as the "gamblification of work," a sentiment other gig workers shared.
"It's like gambling," said Ben, a rideshare driver. "The house always wins."
When reached for comment, Uber spokesperson Zahid Arab told the LA Times: "The central premise of professor Dubal's paper about how Uber presents Upfront Fares to drivers is simply wrong. We do not tailor individual fares for individual drivers 'as little as the system determines that they may be willing to accept.' Moreover, factors like a driver's race, ethnicity, Quest promotion status, acceptance rate, total earnings or prior trip history are not considered in calculating fares."
Amazon spokeswoman Simone Griffin told Insider, "We created the Amazon Flex program to give individuals the opportunity to set their own schedule and be their own boss, with competitive earnings that exceed $26 per scheduled hour on average. We hear from most of the Amazon Flex delivery partners that they love the program, and we're proud of the work they do on behalf of our customers every day."
Lyft did not respond to Insider's request for comment.
While the potential implications of artificial intelligence technologies have come under greater scrutiny ever since ChatGPT was rolled out in November, companies have been using AI tools for years to help set prices, make decisions, and even hire and fire workers. In her paper, Dubal cited algorithmic wage discrimination as among the reasons the California Labor Commission sued Uber and Lyft in 2020 — and claimed the companies owed drivers a combined $1.3 billion in payments for their hours worked. The lawsuits are still ongoing.
As companies incorporate AI technologies going forward, Dubal is concerned that algorithmic wage discrimination practices "have the great potential to seep into the firm practices of other sectors," which would mean more than just gig workers would be impacted.
Dubal said that there should be a ban on the use of algorithms and AI to set wages and called on the federal government to take a closer look at the issue.
"To address these problems, this Article invites lawmakers and regulators to direct their attention, not just to the problems of transparency and accuracy of automation technologies at work, but also to an evaluation of the social harms embedded in the logic of the algorithmic systems themselves," she wrote in the paper's concluding line.