Drivers call themselves brothers on the road and they have these amazing slogans.

One of them is that we might not be blood, but we are closer than family.

Hello and welcome to Tech Won't Save Us.

I'm your host, Paris Marks, and this week my guest is Ritha Kodry.

Ritha is a PhD candidate in Urban Information Systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,

and she's recently been doing work on how gig platforms like Gojek and Grab operate in Indonesia, and how motorcycle taxi drivers have responded

to their changing working conditions.

As I said at the end of last year, I want to do more conversations this year looking at

tech issues outside the United States,

outside North America, and even outside the global north. And so that's part of the reason why

when I read about Ritha's work in Indonesia, I wanted to speak with her because it sounded really

interesting. In particular, how app-based work in Indonesia, because of how the city is organized,

really shows how important the driver, the human worker, is to making those systems efficient

and workable. Part of the argument is that it's these algorithms and the technology that make

these systems and these services efficient. But what Ritha's work shows is that without the these algorithms and the technology that make these systems and these services

efficient. But what Ritha's work shows is that without the drivers and their knowledge of the

local situation, that's not going to happen. So I think you're really going to like this episode and find

it really interesting as Ritha explains how these things work in the Indonesian context. Tech Won't

Save Us is part of the Harbinger Media

Network, a group of left-wing podcasts that are made in Canada, and you can find out more about

that at harbingermediannetwork.com. If you like the show, make sure to leave a five-star review

on Apple Podcasts and make sure to share it on social media or with any friends or colleagues

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