Alex Rosenblatt

Inside the Algorithm: What 5,000 Miles With Gig Workers Taught One Researcher About Power, Control, and Design Paths of Curiosity in an AI World What if the app that decides your Uber driver's next ride was specifically designed to make them feel free while controlling almost everything they do? Dr. Alex Rosenblat spent seven years finding out. In this episode, we continue our AI, Data, Behavior, and Human Systems miniseries with Dr. Alex Rosenblat, Director of Sociotechnical Research at The Markup and Cal Matters, and author of Uberland: How Algorithms Are Rewriting the Rules at Work. She rode over five thousand miles with gig workers across twenty-five cities, then did something almost no outside researcher has ever done — she went inside Uber to try to change it. Together, we explore: How algorithmic management gives companies total control over workers without ever having to call them employees Why drivers crowdsource the rules in online forums because the platform never actually tells them what the rules are What dark patterns look like in the real world — from gig apps to hospital registration tablets — and how they steer choices you didn't know were being steered What happened when Dr. Rosenblat tried to get a copy of her own child's hospital consent forms after surgery Why surveillance pricing — getting charged a different amount than the person standing next to you — may be the most underreported story in tech right now What ethnography gives researchers that no dataset ever could Dr. Rosenblat also reflects on what it means to study a system from the outside, work inside it, and come back out to investigate again — and why understanding how every stakeholder thinks is the skill most researchers never develop. This conversation will change how you read every form you're handed, every app you open, and every choice a platform tells you that you're making freely. Because in a world where design is policy, the most important question isn't what the system can do — it's what it's been built to make you do without noticing.