The Role of Goal Framing in Human–AI Decision Making: Insights from Platform Labor Markets
Keywords:
goal framing, human–AI decision making, platform labor, algorithmic management, behavioral economics, sociotechnical systems, fairness, governanceAbstract
The infusion of artificial intelligence into the governance of platform labor markets has transformed the nature of work, rendering decision making a tightly coupled human–AI activity. Within these large-scale sociotechnical infrastructures, the framing of goals—the manner in which objectives, earnings targets, and performance metrics are presented to workers—serves as a subtle yet powerful behavioral lever. This paper examines the systemic role of goal framing in shaping human decision making under algorithmic management. Drawing on behavioral economics, organizational psychology, and information systems research, the analysis situates goal framing as a design variable embedded in the architecture of platform ecosystems. It investigates how AI-driven interfaces construct reference points, impose loss-aversion nudges, and orchestrate self-regulatory behaviors across distributed workforces. Through a structural lens, the paper delineates the trade-offs between operational efficiency and worker autonomy, the fairness implications of personalized goal frames, and the governance challenges that arise when opaque algorithms exploit cognitive biases. The insights are grounded in empirical findings from recent field experiments in gig work, alongside observational studies of ride-hailing, delivery, and online freelancing platforms. The discussion extends to long-term system sustainability, highlighting the risks of erosion in trust, worker attrition, and behavioral over-optimization when goal framing is engineered solely for platform surplus. By synthesizing these dimensions, the paper offers a comprehensive framework for understanding goal framing as a critical infrastructural component of human–AI decision systems, and it proposes directions for ethically aligned design and regulatory oversight.
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This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
