This book analyses the impact of technological advancements on job creation, job losses, and job quality and shows how the current regulatory landscape can meet the challenge of reconciling labour protection and technology.

What effect do robots, algorithms, and online platforms have on the world of work? Using case studies and examples from across the EU, the UK, and the US, this book provides a compass to navigate this technological transformation as well as the regulatory options available, and proposes a new map for the era of radical digital advancements. From platform work to the gig-economy and the impact of artificial intelligence, algorithmic management, and digital surveillance on workplaces, technology has overwhelming consequences for everyone’s lives, reshaping the labour market and straining social institutions. Contrary to preliminary analyses forecasting the threat of human work obsolescence, the book demonstrates that digital tools are more likely to replace managerial roles and intensify organisational processes in workplaces, rather than opening the way for mass job displacement. Can flexibility and protection be reconciled so that legal frameworks uphold innovation? How can we address the pervasive power of AI-enabled monitoring? How likely is it that the gig-economy model will emerge as a new organisational paradigm across sectors? And what can social partners and political players do to adopt effective regulation? Technology is never neutral. It can and must be governed, to ensure that progress favours the many. Digital transformation can be an essential ally, from the warehouse to the office, but it must be tested in terms of social and political sustainability, not only through the lenses of economic convenience. Your Boss Is an Algorithm offers a guide to explore these new scenarios, their promises, and perils.

"Technology is fundamentally revolutionising the world of work - in this magisterial contribution, Aloisi and De Stefano traverse the impact of innovation on jobs, from the prospect of full automation to platform work and future-proofing labour law. It will be of great value to scholars and practitioners in law, labour market economics, and beyond." - Jeremias Adams-Prassl, Professor of Law, Oxford University, UK

"Your Boss is an Algorithm is an indispensable resource to anyone thinking about how to understand and govern technology at work. Aloisi and De Stefano provide brilliant—and urgent—analysis of platform labor and the role of artificial intelligence in constraining our collective futures. But more critically, they provide a ‘future-proof’ framework to regulate innovation." - Veena Dubal, Professor of Law, University of California Hastings College of the Law, USA

"The authors have demonstrated excellence in the research that they have presented throughout the book … an insightful read for academic researchers, policy and law professionals, industry practitioners or anyone holding an active interest in the topic." - British Journal of Industrial Relations

"Brilliant book - very informative on platform and AI. Highly recommended." - Oxford Brookes University