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**How AI is used to surveil workers**

Opaque algorithms meant to analyze worker productivity have been rapidly spreading through our workplaces, as detailed in a new must-read piece by Rebecca Ackermann, published Monday in MIT Technology Review.

Since the pandemic, lots of companies have adopted software to analyze keystrokes or detect how much time workers are spending at their computers. The trend is driven by a suspicion that remote workers are less productive, though that's not broadly supported by economic research. Still, that belief is behind the efforts of Elon Musk and the Office of Personnel Management to roll back remote work for US federal employees.

The focus on remote workers, though, misses another big part of the story: algorithmic decision-making in industries where people don't work at home. Gig workers like ride-share drivers might be kicked off their platforms by an algorithm, with no way to appeal. Productivity systems at Amazon warehouses dictated a pace of work that Amazon's internal teams found would lead to more injuries, but the company implemented them anyway, according to a 2024 congressional report.

Ackermann posits that these algorithmic tools are less about efficiency and more about control, which workers have less and less of. There are few laws requiring companies to offer transparency about what data is going into their productivity models and how decisions are made. "Advocates say that individual efforts to push back against or evade electronic monitoring are not enough," she writes. "The technology is too widespread and the stakes too high."

Productivity tools don't just track work, Ackermann writes. They reshape the relationship between workers and those in power. Labor groups are pushing back against that shift in power by seeking to make the algorithms that fuel management decisions more transparent.

The full piece contains so much that surprised me about the widening scope of productivity tools and the very limited means that workers have to understand what goes into them. As the pursuit of efficiency gains political influence in the US, the attitudes and technologies that transformed the private sector may now be extending to the public sector. Federal workers are already preparing for that shift, according to a new story in Wired. For some clues as to what that might mean, read Rebecca Ackermann's full story.