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    Brian Merchant: Are you a victim of algorithmic wage discrimination? If not, just wait

    by Brian Merchant, Los Angeles Times Apr 11, 2023 8 minutes
    Uber used to pay its drivers for rides using a semi-transparent formula.

    If you've ever worked for an on-demand app platform, or for Amazon, or even as an independent contractor at all in the last few years, there's a good chance that you've been discriminated against — by an algorithm.

    I'll explain.

    Let's say I'm a delivery driver, and I pick up the lunch you ordered from your local sushi joint and drop it off on your doorstep. It takes me 15 minutes, and I get paid $5. You too are a delivery driver for the same company; you accept the same order, make the delivery in the same amount of time, at the same level of quality. How much should you get paid for your work? Five dollars, right?

    Seems pretty straightforward. The notion that people should be paid the same wages for doing the same work is one of the most fundamental assumptions about a fair labor market. And yet, according to new research from Veena Dubal, a law professor at UC Hastings, on-demand app and tech companies have been undermining this crucial compact in ways that stand to influence the future of work in deeply concerning ways.

    "From Amazon to Uber to the healthcare sector," Dubal tells me, "workers are being paid different amounts for the same amount of work that is conducted for the same amount of time."

    Now let's say I'm a delivery driver for Uber

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