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AI and the Future of Work: How Algorithms Manage and Surveil Labor | Jamie Woodcock & Craig Gent
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June 10, 2026
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1:42:13Now PlayingAI now decides who gets work, when they work, and how fast they work. Algorithmic management is reshaping jobs across logistics, retail, education, and the gig economy.
Chandni Dwarkasing (SOAS University of London) moderates this session of the Series for Advanced Political Economy, a conversation on the political economy of AI and labor with Jamie Woodcock (King's College London) and Craig Gent (London School of Economics). Together they trace how artificial intelligence fits a long history of management and control at work, running from Taylorism through cybernetics to today's algorithmic supervision.
In this episode:
- How algorithmic management tracks, scores, and schedules workers across logistics, retail, hospitality, education, and the gig economy
- Why employers adopt these tools and what that means for pay, breaks, and working conditions
- The video games industry as a case study, where labor reaches 95 to 98 percent of production costs and performers have won union protections on AI
- What Deliveroo, Uber, and call centers show about grievances, account deactivation, and the limits of automated management
- How unions can treat AI as a bargaining issue and set clear guardrails on its use
- The link between AI, energy and water use, supply chains, and decarbonizing the workplace
Jamie Woodcock is the author of Troublemaking, The Fight Against Platform Capitalism, and Marx at the Arcade, and sits on the editorial boards of Notes from Below and Historical Materialism. Craig Gent is the author of Cyber Boss: The Rise of Algorithmic Management and the New Struggle for Control at Work.
The Series for Advanced Political Economy is produced in partnership with the New School, FREE and SOAS, bringing heterodox and critical analysis to current economic questions.
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