{"id":23560,"date":"2026-06-18T08:37:21","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T06:37:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/18\/gig-workers-are-endlessly-exploited-ai-could-make-more-of-us-share-their-fate\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T08:37:21","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T06:37:21","slug":"gig-workers-are-endlessly-exploited-ai-could-make-more-of-us-share-their-fate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/18\/gig-workers-are-endlessly-exploited-ai-could-make-more-of-us-share-their-fate\/","title":{"rendered":"Gig workers are endlessly exploited. AI could make more of us share their fate"},"content":{"rendered":"

As companies integrate AI and hire fewer employees, a shift toward a \u2018gig economy\u2019 will commence<\/p>\n

In 2024, the buy-now-pay-later company Klarna announced that it would cut hundreds of customer service roles and begin using an artificial intelligence chatbot instead. The move was expected to save the company millions. But a year later, after customers complained<\/a> about the degraded quality of customer service, Klarna began to quietly recruit human customer service agents back.<\/p>\n

At first glance, the reversal appeared to be a victory for human workers in the age of AI. The reality was more complex. Instead of bringing on full-time customer service agents, who Klarna contracts through an outside agency, it instead brought on workers in what Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski has described as \u201can Uber type of set-up\u201d. Now, an AI chatbot continues to handle most of customers\u2019 basic queries, while a growing number of gig workers handle the more advanced ones. \u201cJust like somebody can go and drive an Uber for a while, they can actually jump on and work for Klarna\u2019s customer service,\u201d Siemiatkowski said on a podcast<\/a> in February.<\/p>\n

Continue reading…<\/a>
\nAs companies integrate AI and hire fewer employees, a shift toward a \u2018gig economy\u2019 will commence
\nIn 2024, the buy-now-pay-later company Klarna announced that it would cut hundreds of customer service roles and begin using an artificial intelligence chatbot instead. The move was expected to save the company millions. But a year later, after customers complained about the degraded quality of customer service, Klarna began to quietly recruit human customer service agents back.
\nAt first glance, the reversal appeared to be a victory for human workers in the age of AI. The reality was more complex. Instead of bringing on full-time customer service agents, who Klarna contracts through an outside agency, it instead brought on workers in what Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski has described as \u201can Uber type of set-up\u201d. Now, an AI chatbot continues to handle most of customers\u2019 basic queries, while a growing number of gig workers handle the more advanced ones. \u201cJust like somebody can go and drive an Uber for a while, they can actually jump on and work for Klarna\u2019s customer service,\u201d Siemiatkowski said on a podcast in February. Continue reading…Technology | The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As companies integrate AI and hire fewer employees, a shift toward a \u2018gig economy\u2019 will commence In 2024, the buy-now-pay-later company Klarna announced that it would cut hundreds of customer service roles and begin using an artificial intelligence chatbot instead. The move was expected to save the company millions. But a year later, after customers …<\/p>\n

Gig workers are endlessly exploited. AI could make more of us share their fate<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":23561,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23560"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}