U.S. Army, Uber sign research agreement

Will Uber aquire the necessary licenses from the FAA to fly these things or will they also ignore those because they want to 'disrupt' the industry? Theses things better be safe before they get used.

I for one don't want one if these things crashing on my house.

Interesting, military only gave ~$1M for such an ambitious project while Uber is burning billions a year and could easily afford this.

My speculation is that this partnership is first and foremost an attempt to provide Uber with a patina of respectability for this attempt and access to military technical expertise. Uber just crashed and burned on self driving, something it desperately needs to quench its towering money fires. Uber's investors know that. Therefore, Uber needs to constantly appear to be "innovating" in flashy ways to keep its investors at bay with seductive promises of even greater riches.

This, even if the entire idea of flying cars driven by normal humans is insane or worse, piloted by a company known for breaking rules (now in Aviation of all things!) and have the dubious honor of being the first to kill a woman with self-driving AI.

It helps to have connections to get these contracts yo. And of course, yet another major American company cooperating with defense. Military-industrial complex indeed. Every peaceful venture must be tied to the killing machine. All the cool kids are, like Google and its TF support for drone assassinations.

EDIT: added technical expertise to 2nd paragraph

Could it be a front for some other kind of deal? It sounds a bit paranoid but if it's classified they wouldn't tell us anyway.

Probably just a way to grease the wheels and start the sharing of knowledge between parties. If Uber succeeds in becoming a serious aeronotics lab then the government will definetly want to collaborate, might make sense to get some ties established now?

It’s good that the US isn’t at war in Iraq any more. Uber’s surge pricing would bankrupt them.