Author: Karen Hao
Publisher: MIT Technology Review
Publication Year: 2022
Summary: In the following article, Karen Hao writes the fourth story in a 5 part series on artificial intelligence (AI) colonialism. Nadine Freischlad, an Indonesian-based journalist, joins her for this story. The story focuses on Jakarta, Indonesia, where a movement of resistance against the algorithmic ride-hailing giant Gojek builds among motorbike taxi drivers. In Jakarta, drivers are using base camps to keep each other informed and band together to bend Gojek’s system towards their will. This has allowed them an upon channel of communication with the company. This article discusses how workers can maintain and build collective power and avoid exploitation from platform companies. According to one of the drivers interviewed, “Drivers feel much more empowered, through their community structure, to reach out to management and negotiate with them in a way that I haven’t seen among Uber and Lyft drivers in the US.” The article illustrates small ways workers can still operate under systems that are built to squeeze money out of them, and create an ethical situation together, and mentions that without proper legal rights, this everyday resistance and mutual aid to improve conditions is not necessarily sustainable.