Our New Cyberboss Overlords

On social media, “the algo” is like a boss in a video game – you can beat it, if you know how to play the game. But in the real world, algorithmic management is a much sturdier opponent, a system that tracks our every move and thwarts workers’ attempts to organise.

So how can we resist exploitation when the boss has been replaced by a computer? That’s the premise of Cyberboss, a new book by Craig Gent, North of England editor for Novara Media. In order to write it, he returned to the tradition of the workers inquiry, speaking to Amazon warehouse packers, Deliveroo drivers and supermarket shoppers about labouring under the algorithm.

He talks to NM’s head of audio Chal Ravens about the strange forms of resistance that emerge when even your boss has no idea how the system actually works. Cyberboss: The Rise of Algorithmic Management and the New Struggle for Control at Work is available now through Verso Books.