Uber and the making of an Algopticon - Insights from the daily life of Montreal drivers

Abstract

Using machine learning and artificial intelligence, Uber has been disrupting the world taxi industry. However, the Uber algorithmic apparatus managed to perfectionize the scalable decentralized tracking and surveillance of mobile living bodies. This article examines the Uber surveillance machinery and discusses the determinants of its algorithmically powered ‘all-seeing power’. The latter is being figured as an Algopticon that reinvents Bentham’s panopticon in the era of the platform economy.

Keywords

algorithms geofencing human tracking system machine learning Montreal panopticon platform capitalism surveillance Uber

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