The Roots of Bias on Uber

TL;DR

This paper explores how the structure of digitally mediated workplaces like Uber can enable biases, highlighting the impact of platform design on stakeholder accountability and bias manifestation.

Contribution

It provides an analysis of how platform-mediated interactions contribute to bias and reduced accountability in Uber's digital workplace environment.

Findings

Platform structure enables bias manifestation

Reduced stakeholder accountability facilitates bias

Digital mediation impacts workplace fairness

Abstract

In the last decade, there has been a growth in, what we call, digitally mediated workplaces. A digitally mediated workplace is one where interactions between stakeholders are primarily managed by proprietary, algorithmically managed digital platform. The replacement of the relationships between the stakeholders by the platform is a key feature of these workplaces, and is a contributing factor to the decrease in contractual responsibilities each stakeholder has to one another. In this paper, we discuss some of the ways in which this structure and lack of accountability serves as a root of, or at least an enabler to, the realization of biases in the ridesharing application Uber, a digitally mediated workplace.