From cab drivers and baristas to Amazon workers and McDonald’s cashiers, many workers are concerned about how new technologies are degrading labor conditions. Across the spectrum of politics and perspectives, many see automation and computerized decision-making as threats to the quality or existence of workers’ jobs.

But in his forthcoming book Cyberboss: The Rise of Algorithmic Management and the New Struggle for Control at Work, out from Verso in August, scholar Craig Gent argues that people often fail to understand the most harmful aspects of new technology in the workplace. He demonstrates that the overriding concern for most workers should not be replacement by robots but management by them.

Gent argues that “algorithmic management” — the use of computers to supervise worker productivity and make workplace decisions — worsens managerial structures that already rob workers of their agency and dignity. Resisting this heightened domination requires recognizing how algorithmic management undermines workplace organizing, and campaigning for its suppression.