I wonder how many engineers are using their unlimited token budgets to moonlight new startups.
Even those new startups still require products to be built in a productive and sustainable way beyond the first prototype...
Uber’s Anthropic AI push hits a wall
71–80 of 114 posts
Re: Uber’s Anthropic AI push hits a wall
#72I see things like 2 sentence menu summaries in Uber Eats that are completely off in tone. A quick sample from my app right now: “Authentic Caribbean Flavours. Jerk Chicken, Curry Goat, and more. A vibrant culinary journey awaits.” - local Caribbean place “Customisable burgers with 250,000+ toppings. Hand-cut fries and rich milkshakes await.” - Five Guys “Authentic Indian cuisine bursting with rich flavours. Perfect f…
The linked article is not about usage of AI in the product. It's about blowing the budget on AI coding tools, which is a much more interesting topic to discuss given how heavily they are being pushed by some companies.
If AI coding tools were having the benefits promised by AI vendors then Uber would be dropping staff, not the tools themselves.
Re: Uber’s Anthropic AI push hits a wall
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Aside from the hilarious "250,000+ toppings" error, these summaries seem... fine? I would be unsurprised to learn that a human came up with them, even. Seems like pretty common/standard marketing copy.
But why does Uber need to spend 3.4B on injecting a useless blob of text between me and an overpriced burger delivered by a struggling illegal immigrant in a smoke-belching jalopy? I know the counter-argument. "This will increase sales". You know what else would increase sales? Spending the 3.4B to replace the above with a uniformed delivery service similar to UPS. That job could pay benefits.
> But why does Uber need to spend 3.4B on injecting a useless blob of text
They didn't. 3.4B was their total R&B cost. Don't blame AI for your human hallucination.
Re: Uber’s Anthropic AI push hits a wall
#74This article is very unclear. It says that "Despite spending $3.4 billion on research and development, the company has already exhausted its planned AI budget just months into 2026" - does this mean the budget for AI coding tools is $3.4B? Or the budget on R&D (product development) at Uber?
Then later, "Uber's R&D expenses rose 9% to $3.4 billion in 2025, and the company expects that figure to keep climbing—suggesting AI may be as much a cost driver as a productivity lever" - so what's the 2026 budget? (From a quick googling Uber operates on a December 31-ending financial year).
The the article says "Chief Technology Officer Praveen Neppalli Naga said Uber is now "back to the drawing board" after a surge in the use of AI coding tools". But then says "The financial pressure is already building. Uber's R&D expenses rose 9% to $3.4 billion in 2025, and the company expects that figure to keep climbing". So are they "back to the drawing board" (pulling back on the tooling) or plowing on and continuing to grow the costs?
The article goes on to say "The payoff is starting to show. Around 11% of Uber's live backend code updates are now written by AI agents, up sharply in just a few months. These systems power everything from ride-matching to pricing and bug fixes.".
So what am I to draw from this? What actually was the budget? And was it blown? And if so, what is the consequence? This is just such a bizarre piece.
Re: Uber’s Anthropic AI push hits a wall
#753.4B in 4.5 months…is that all going to Anthropic? Makes it seem so with the wording and how they’re pivoting to Codex too
"My delivery service CEO told me the AI keep eating his tokens so I asked how many tokens he has and he said he just goes to the token shop and gets a new batch of tokens afterwards so I said it sounds like he’s just feeding tokens to the AI and then his laid off workers started crying."
Re: Uber’s Anthropic AI push hits a wall
#76This reads as if 100% of Uber’s R&D spend went to tokens. It did not.
Re: Uber’s Anthropic AI push hits a wall
#77Syndicated from https://www.benzinga.com/markets/tech/26/04/51828848/ubers-a...
It's a poorly written junk article upvoted based on Uber/Anthropomorphic sentiment. I recommend flagging it.
Re: Uber’s Anthropic AI push hits a wall
#78> According to The Information, Chief Technology Officer Praveen Neppalli Naga said Uber is now "back to the drawing board" after a surge in the use of AI coding tools, particularly Anthropic's Claude Code, has blown past internal expectations. Of usage costs? > The payoff is starting to show. Around 11% of Uber's live backend code updates are now written by AI agents, up sharply in just a few months. These systems p…
Yes, yahoo “journalism” is garbage. The primary source of this story is paywalled, so I can’t actually see what it said, but this AI (or otherwise crappy) summary is worthless.
Yahoo doesn't have journalism. It's a syndication portal.
https://www.benzinga.com/markets/tech/26/04/51828848/ubers-a...
Re: Uber’s Anthropic AI push hits a wall
#793.4B in 4.5 months…is that all going to Anthropic? Makes it seem so with the wording and how they’re pivoting to Codex too
That’s the entire R&D budget - the article is completely lacking in actual details, such as how much was spent on Ai
Re: Uber’s Anthropic AI push hits a wall
#80I see things like 2 sentence menu summaries in Uber Eats that are completely off in tone. A quick sample from my app right now: “Authentic Caribbean Flavours. Jerk Chicken, Curry Goat, and more. A vibrant culinary journey awaits.” - local Caribbean place “Customisable burgers with 250,000+ toppings. Hand-cut fries and rich milkshakes await.” - Five Guys “Authentic Indian cuisine bursting with rich flavours. Perfect f…
Aside from the hilarious "250,000+ toppings" error, these summaries seem... fine? I would be unsurprised to learn that a human came up with them, even. Seems like pretty common/standard marketing copy.
they make me feel embarrassed to be human