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Scaling Machine Learning at Uber with Michelangelo

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Re: Scaling Machine Learning at Uber with Michelangelo

#31

Post by jquery »

platz wrote: post #26
woolvalley wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it Uber / gig-economy apps you don't like, or the general idea of low income relatively unskilled labor jobs?

It's the idea of companies externalizing costs onto their labor force, because they refuse to recognize their labor force as "workers". They avoid responsibility to communities they generate profits in, by exporting negative externalizes at a much higher level than traditional businesses. Also, I don't think Uber drivers are 'unskilled'. The lowest rung is filtered out by not being able to bring their own $20000 vehi…

Merely owning a vehicle is an odd definition of skilled labor. They actually do a lot of community engagement (Uber now has huge operations teams all over the world) so that point is either ignorant or outdated. And you seem to object to the idea of independent contractors entirely (unless you can elaborate further), which is your right, but not really a unique strike against Uber.

Re: Scaling Machine Learning at Uber with Michelangelo

#32

Post by UncleEntity »

jquery wrote: post #20
marmaduke wrote: post #2

I love what Uber does with machines (ML), hate what it (currently) does to people. We recently potted some models from Stan to Pyro (SVI on PyTorch), and it’s been reallly exciting (except for the dark corner of poutines), it really has the performance of something being used in production, except the occasional nan explosion. edit we are lazy and use our GitLab CI/CD to drive model development iteration. It’s not as…

I like what Uber (currently) does to people. Gets passengers from point A to point B efficiently while saving them significant money in the process over alternatives. Metaphorically puts dinner on the table of hundreds of thousands of drivers. Literally puts dinner on the table of millions (UberEats). Has a business model that doesn't rely exposing more eyeballs to more ads, corrupting the press, media, and privacy i…

> Has a business model that doesn't rely exposing more eyeballs to more ads, corrupting the press, media, and privacy in the process.

Though it does have a business model that (did?) flagrantly disregards the law in pretty much every market it moved into.

And we'll see how the privacy thing turns out when they figure out the data they have on millions/billions of people is worth a bunch of money and Wall Street is demanding "more cowbell".

Re: Scaling Machine Learning at Uber with Michelangelo

#33

Post by jquery »

UncleEntity wrote: post #32
jquery wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like what Uber (currently) does to people. Gets passengers from point A to point B efficiently while saving them significant money in the process over alternatives. Metaphorically puts dinner on the table of hundreds of thousands of drivers. Literally puts dinner on the table of millions (UberEats). Has a business model that doesn't rely exposing more eyeballs to more ads, corrupting the press, media, and privacy i…

> Has a business model that doesn't rely exposing more eyeballs to more ads, corrupting the press, media, and privacy in the process. Though it does have a business model that (did?) flagrantly disregards the law in pretty much every market it moved into. And we'll see how the privacy thing turns out when they figure out the data they have on millions/billions of people is worth a bunch of money and Wall Street is de…

Yes, Uber suffers from original sin, but you don't become the fastest growing company of all time by avoiding any toe-stepping. Look at the pathetic state of "Jump Bikes" in SF. Uber is judiciously following all the regulations these days (in all areas), and SF is "generously" upping the Jump Bike limit from roughly 200 to 400 total bikes. It's really a pathetic number of bikes and doesn't come close to meeting demand.

Re: Scaling Machine Learning at Uber with Michelangelo

#34

Post by UncleEntity »

jquery wrote: post #31
platz wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the idea of companies externalizing costs onto their labor force, because they refuse to recognize their labor force as "workers". They avoid responsibility to communities they generate profits in, by exporting negative externalizes at a much higher level than traditional businesses. Also, I don't think Uber drivers are 'unskilled'. The lowest rung is filtered out by not being able to bring their own $20000 vehi…

Merely owning a vehicle is an odd definition of skilled labor. They actually do a lot of community engagement (Uber now has huge operations teams all over the world) so that point is either ignorant or outdated. And you seem to object to the idea of independent contractors entirely (unless you can elaborate further), which is your right, but not really a unique strike against Uber.

> Merely owning a vehicle is an odd definition of skilled labor.

Having witnessed countless uber/lyft drivers do their thing I have to agree with your "skilled" assessment.

More on point -- my main objection is they are paying basically at cost pricing to the "driver-partners" when you add up all the costs. Basically, though many will disagree, all they're doing is taking the equity out of their vehicle now instead of at resale time.

Re: Scaling Machine Learning at Uber with Michelangelo

#35

Post by cocobongo »

marmaduke wrote: post #30
cocobongo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does Uber currently do to people that you hate? Uber currently provides people with more than 2 Million jobs [1]. Uber drivers/couriers made almost $13 Billion in the US alone last year [2]. [1] https://medium.com/@gc/ubers-path-forward-b59ec9bd4ef6 [2] https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Uber-drivers-in...

Treat people like freelancers while paying them like low-wage waiters? $13bn/2mn jobs is $6k/job/yr, not so impressive compared to welfare.

Personally I think Uber drivers/couriers are freelancers. Uber drivers can work whatever hours they like. If they want to work 1 hour a day, they can. If they want to work 10 hours a day, they can. That's not something that non-freelancers can do.

For the same reason, I don't think it's fair to compare the average Uber driver salary to a full-time salary. Some Uber drivers work full-time, but I'd guess most don't. Lots probably only work a few hours a week. Uber provides students/parents/anyone with a way to make extra money on the side.

Also, from the article I linked to, 900k US drivers make $13 Billion a year. So $14k-$15k/job/year. When you factor in that many (probably most) Uber drivers are only working part-time, that's significant income from a super flexible job.

Re: Scaling Machine Learning at Uber with Michelangelo

#36

Post by marmaduke »

cocobongo wrote: post #35
marmaduke wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Treat people like freelancers while paying them like low-wage waiters? $13bn/2mn jobs is $6k/job/yr, not so impressive compared to welfare.

Personally I think Uber drivers/couriers are freelancers. Uber drivers can work whatever hours they like. If they want to work 1 hour a day, they can. If they want to work 10 hours a day, they can. That's not something that non-freelancers can do. For the same reason, I don't think it's fair to compare the average Uber driver salary to a full-time salary. Some Uber drivers work full-time, but I'd guess most don't. Lo…

> I think Uber drivers/couriers are freelancers

yep so they should be compensated more, not less, in sight of the precarity of their job

> When you factor in that many (probably most) Uber drivers are only working part-time, that's significant income from a super flexible job

super flexible for whom? the drivers? or for Uber?

There are two sides to the gig style work, one side is a corp that's got teams of PhDs and a cloud calculating its optimal risk-reward strategy, and the other side some poor people trying to make money. How this can possibly turn out well for the latter is a pipe dream.

Re: Scaling Machine Learning at Uber with Michelangelo

#37

Post by marmaduke »

jquery wrote: post #33
UncleEntity wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Has a business model that doesn't rely exposing more eyeballs to more ads, corrupting the press, media, and privacy in the process. Though it does have a business model that (did?) flagrantly disregards the law in pretty much every market it moved into. And we'll see how the privacy thing turns out when they figure out the data they have on millions/billions of people is worth a bunch of money and Wall Street is de…

Yes, Uber suffers from original sin, but you don't become the fastest growing company of all time by avoiding any toe-stepping. Look at the pathetic state of "Jump Bikes" in SF. Uber is judiciously following all the regulations these days (in all areas), and SF is "generously" upping the Jump Bike limit from roughly 200 to 400 total bikes. It's really a pathetic number of bikes and doesn't come close to meeting deman…

> you don't become the fastest growing company of all time by avoiding any toe-stepping

this is purified hubris, how can you not vomit on your keyboard while writing that?

> roughly 200 to 400 total bikes. It's really a pathetic number of bikes and doesn't come close to meeting demand

maybe the mandate of SF is not to satisfy demand or Uber's profit incentive but to keep public interest in mind, e.g. ensure that Uber doesn't develop a monopoly on whatever a jump bike is.

Re: Scaling Machine Learning at Uber with Michelangelo

#38

Post by cocobongo »

marmaduke wrote: post #36
cocobongo wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I think Uber drivers/couriers are freelancers. Uber drivers can work whatever hours they like. If they want to work 1 hour a day, they can. If they want to work 10 hours a day, they can. That's not something that non-freelancers can do. For the same reason, I don't think it's fair to compare the average Uber driver salary to a full-time salary. Some Uber drivers work full-time, but I'd guess most don't. Lo…

> I think Uber drivers/couriers are freelancers yep so they should be compensated more, not less, in sight of the precarity of their job > When you factor in that many (probably most) Uber drivers are only working part-time, that's significant income from a super flexible job super flexible for whom? the drivers? or for Uber? There are two sides to the gig style work, one side is a corp that's got teams of PhDs and a…

Freelancers are compensated whatever the market values them at. If they can get better pay/work elsewhere, then they do.

Driving for Uber is as flexible job as it gets. I don't see how it's flexible for Uber - Uber can only offer a ride if a driver decides out of their own free will to accept a ride.

For many people (2+ Million), driving for Uber is worth the money. They decided that it's a better gig than their other options. If they decide that it's not worth it, then they stop. And because it's such a flexible job, they don't even need to give two weeks notice.

Even though you think that driving for Uber isn't worth the money, millions of people around the world do.

Re: Scaling Machine Learning at Uber with Michelangelo

#39

Post by krastanov »

mi_lk wrote: post #25
googlemike wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please do not conflate GPS with navigation. There is a massive set of problems you can solve with high fidelity GPS Data (Uber knows it is a driver in a car, verifies it with another GPS entity (rider app reports GPS also), etc). There is not that much overlap between great GPS data and great maps - no amount of great GPS data will give you a good basemap. Please let me know if I am not making sense, I am more than h…

Can you expand on the difference between GPS and navigation?

All that a GPS device gives you is your coordinates (latitude and longitude). It does not tell you whether these coordinates correspond to a street address (you need a map for that). It does not tell you how to move between two points (you need a pretty complicated set of routing algorithms and historical/real-time traffic congestion data to do that).

Re: Scaling Machine Learning at Uber with Michelangelo

#40

Post by googlemike »

mi_lk wrote: post #25
googlemike wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please do not conflate GPS with navigation. There is a massive set of problems you can solve with high fidelity GPS Data (Uber knows it is a driver in a car, verifies it with another GPS entity (rider app reports GPS also), etc). There is not that much overlap between great GPS data and great maps - no amount of great GPS data will give you a good basemap. Please let me know if I am not making sense, I am more than h…

Can you expand on the difference between GPS and navigation?

GPS is a system for determining your position in the world, usually in latitude and longitude.

Navigation is pathfinding in the real world + directions. GPS is useful (But far from the only) system for determining where you are. Navigation is often implemented as a route from point A (in lat, lng) to point B (in lat, lng) and then running an algorithm (such as dijkstra, or A*, but usually something far more advanced) from A to B. The algorithm runs on a routing graph of some kind, produced from processing real world map data.

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