The short-term experience of performing tasks by choice and getting paid immediately is gratifying. However, there may be less apparent long-term consequences
Artificial intelligence has disrupted traditional work structures worldwide. First, it has automated millions of jobs and forced skilled professionals into unemployment or underemployment. Second, employers can now fragment large volumes of skilled work into small, repeatable modules called gigs and use algorithms to control how workers perform them. Third, long-term employment becomes unnecessary: Why pay people long-term benefits and higher wages when they can be hired for cheap and on-demand using clicks on an app? Millennials, who comprise much of the gig workforce, appear to enjoy the flexibility and choice offered by this arrangement. When they get to select their work and deliver it how and where they want, they experience control over their time and eventually their professional destiny. Such autonomy—for employers and gig workers—is the cornerstone of gig work.
[This article has been published with permission from IIM Bangalore. www.iimb.ac.in Views expressed are personal.]