Policy design, power, and AI: the case of on-demand food delivery in Singapore

The prevalent use of artificial intelligence (AI) in contemporary society has emerged as a salient issue for governance. This is especially the case for the on-demand food delivery sector, which quickly became a growing service sector during the COVID-19 pandemic when multiple shelter-in-place measures were implemented around the world. As a service built on algorithmic technology, on-demand food delivery empowered its users in distinct ways. For example, for many consumers, on-demand delivery was the only way to meet everyday sustenance needs. For those in the food industry, on-demand delivery was a new business model to ensure survival during a highly uncertain time. For food couriers, on-demand delivery offered ample employment opportunities (e.g., almost anyone with a smart phone can become a courier), but there was a trade-off between ease-of-entry into the sector and labour protection. Food couriers are generally recognised as non-employees and thus lack the protection and rights to which employees have access. The AI-enabled exploitation of food couriers around the world is now a commonplace feature of the on-demand food delivery sector. Indeed, terms such as "precariats" (Standing 2012), "algorithmic management" (Galière 2020; Huang 2022a; Sun 2019), "algorithmic control" (Huang 2022a; Ivanova et al. 2018), "despotism" (Huang 2022b), and "new sweatshops" (Schillebeeckx 2021) have been attributed to this feature. In the main, most governments around the world have seemingly embraced the "myth of technological exceptionalism" and decided not to regulate this sector. This is not the case in Singapore: The government has been actively engaged in addressing the exploitative working conditions for which on-demand food delivery is known. In this chapter, I explore the implications that AI poses for existing power relationship between the state and its citizens through the case of on-demand food delivery in Singapore. The theory of social construction and policy design (Ingram et al. 2007; Pierce et al. 2014; Schneider and Ingram 1993; Schneider and Sidney 2009) guides this discussion and accounts for why the Singapore government has chosen to initiate policy reforms to tackle the exploitative features of the on-demand food delivery sector. In so doing, the Singapore government is reasserting its role as "governor" in a changing technological landscape that has so far escaped regulatory efforts.