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Uber wants to turn its drivers into a sensor grid for self-driving companies

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11–20 of 152 posts

Re: Uber wants to turn its drivers into a sensor grid for self-driving companies

#11

I asked an Uber driver, formerly a taxi driver in LA, how he felt about the fact that his driving data was being used to build his replacement. He said he “didn’t care and besides what was he going to do about it anyway, it’s going to happen no matter what” I asked if he had ever heard of collective bargaining or knew about unions and he said no. I think we’re only about another generation before the only purpose for…

> I asked if he had ever heard of collective bargaining or knew about unions and he said no.

collective bargaining or unions do not prevent technological progress, but merely retard it in the hopes that their members can benefit at the cost of progress for everyone else. Look at dock workers and how they tried to prevent automation with unions.

Re: Uber wants to turn its drivers into a sensor grid for self-driving companies

#12

I asked an Uber driver, formerly a taxi driver in LA, how he felt about the fact that his driving data was being used to build his replacement. He said he “didn’t care and besides what was he going to do about it anyway, it’s going to happen no matter what” I asked if he had ever heard of collective bargaining or knew about unions and he said no. I think we’re only about another generation before the only purpose for…

[flagged]

Re: Uber wants to turn its drivers into a sensor grid for self-driving companies

#13

I feel like they should have done this 6 years ago. Most AV companies already have tons of their own data today. But how would it work to install expensive LIDAR sensors on privately-owned vehicles?

I was working at Lyft 8 years ago and suggested this to the head of AV program then. They didn't listen.

Re: Uber wants to turn its drivers into a sensor grid for self-driving companies

#17

I asked an Uber driver, formerly a taxi driver in LA, how he felt about the fact that his driving data was being used to build his replacement. He said he “didn’t care and besides what was he going to do about it anyway, it’s going to happen no matter what” I asked if he had ever heard of collective bargaining or knew about unions and he said no. I think we’re only about another generation before the only purpose for…

[flagged]

There’s no “becoming”

It’s here and it’s been here for decades - it’s just finally impossible to ignore or wave away

Gig workers are self-chattelizing because there is no floor to the depravity that society will accept, and an endless supply of people who will chattelize themselves for a moment of pleasure

Re: Uber wants to turn its drivers into a sensor grid for self-driving companies

#18
post #2

I'm old. Was anyone else's reaction to wonder what Uber was doing for audio-video companies? The original title says "self-driving" and that's much more clear.

Sometimes AV is supposed to mean Anti Virus or Alternative Vote and that's really confusing because it really means Audio Visual. Anything else, no.

I saw the title and thought it can't be AV, they must mean AI and made a typo.

Re: Uber wants to turn its drivers into a sensor grid for self-driving companies

#19

I feel like they should have done this 6 years ago. Most AV companies already have tons of their own data today. But how would it work to install expensive LIDAR sensors on privately-owned vehicles?

Exactly my take as well. This would have been the right diversification move a decade ago.

Uber did invest early in self driving back in 2015, but in 2018 there was a fatality which pretty much deleted their whole program. And looks like it's taken them way too long to try picking it back up.

Re: Uber wants to turn its drivers into a sensor grid for self-driving companies

#20

I'm honestly surprised that Tesla never took advantage of all the cameras in all its cars to do some kind of mapping project. I always thought that was incredibly valuable data. Sort of an automatically crowd-sourced street view.

> surprised that Tesla never took advantage of all the cameras in all its cars to do some kind of mapping

Don’t they [1][2]?

[1] https://www.privacyinternational.org/examples/1929/tesla-lea...

[2] https://electrek.co/2020/10/24/tesla-collecting-insane-amoun...

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