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Uber’s Anthropic AI push hits a wall

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Re: Uber’s Anthropic AI push hits a wall

#41

Post by yorwba »

sd9 wrote: post #13
kelnos wrote: post #11

Earlier 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.

Maybe each one is fine in isolation - what doesn’t come across from the sample is that every single one is practically the same. If you have Uber Eats, open up the app and look through the summaries for a bunch of restaurants and you’ll see what I mean. And besides that, this just feels like something nobody asked for that probably doesn’t sell more food compared to, for example, more pictures.

Don't worry, they'll also use AI to add more pictures, which will all look strangely similar while bearing at best passing resemblance to anything you might actually receive after placing an order.

Re: Uber’s Anthropic AI push hits a wall

#42

Post by nyc_data_geek1 »

maratc wrote: post #26
snovv_crash wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you sell hotdog options? I want some hotdogs at a guaranteed price, but only next week. (I just want upside exposure)

I'd take these options from several companies (all selling hotdogs) and wrap them up in Collateral Hotdog Obligations which I'd then offer to investors.

I will sell you hotdog default swaps. Even if I lose, I win.

Re: Uber’s Anthropic AI push hits a wall

#43

Post by Groxx »

>Despite spending $3.4 billion on research and development, the company has already exhausted its planned AI budget just months into 2026.

This, and the rest of the article, does does not seem to support that they spent 3.4B on AI. The text implies that the R&D budget for the entire company is 3.4 billion (which sounds vaguely reasonable given that market cap), and the portion of that which was earmarked for AI is already spent. I have no idea what the AI spend is there (although I assume it's not small), and the article doesn't provide any number either.

Those are extremely different things (unless there's evidence that 100% of R&D is spent on AI) and that headline seems to be intentionally misleading.

Re: Uber’s Anthropic AI push hits a wall

#44

Post by lll-o-lll »

Bridged7756 wrote: post #24
nyc_data_geek1 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m the CEO of a hot dog company. I’ve worked on hot dogs for 10 years. And I wasn’t prepared for what I’ve just seen. Your life is about to change. So what can you do? Buy as many hot dogs as you can. Buy stock in hot dog companies.

I'm a hot dog chef with over 20 years of experience. Credited with inventing 274 hot dog styles. International awards. World renowned and industry figure. My entire team, very competent hot dog experts, was laid off after a hot dog cooking machine could do what took us 3 months, in just one day. I've been out of a job for 12 months. The reason? All hot dog making has been offloaded to Claudog Hotdog. "Sorry. Hot dog…

> I'm working as a software engineer as we speak.

Well, there’s your problem. Get back to making the hotdogs!

Re: Uber’s Anthropic AI push hits a wall

#45

Post by skeeter2020 »

maratc wrote: post #26
snovv_crash wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you sell hotdog options? I want some hotdogs at a guaranteed price, but only next week. (I just want upside exposure)

I'd take these options from several companies (all selling hotdogs) and wrap them up in Collateral Hotdog Obligations which I'd then offer to investors.

Collateralized hotDog Obligations made up of MBS (Mostly Bones and Sawdust) would be a financial product I could sell to institutional investors!

Re: Uber’s Anthropic AI push hits a wall

#46

Post by mikeocool »

sd9 wrote: post #8

I 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 article seems to suggest the unexpected spend was primarily on coding tools, like Claude Code.

One would hope Uber could manage 1 sentence API summaries (regardless of their quality) for less than $3.4 billion.

Re: Uber’s Anthropic AI push hits a wall

#47

Post by 3eb7988a1663 »

syntaxing wrote: post #17

3.4B 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

If it is anything like my company, sign enormous deals to AI startups that have existed for 8 months, and do little more than provider wrappers around someone else's model. Then hire three different firms that do the same thing because each division has to prove how much more AI they are than the others. Have a handful of internal engineers who have no idea what they are doing, but get approval to build and run an internal B200 server farm. Ensure any big jobs are done through some kind of white-glove offering from Amazon/Azure that removes complexity, but charges astronomical rates.

Re: Uber’s Anthropic AI push hits a wall

#48

Post by mcmcmc »

kelnos wrote: post #11
sd9 wrote: post #8

I 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.

I think that's exactly the point. It's the distillation of the most common marketing copy possible, and when that tone is applied everywhere it becomes very same-y, like those cookie cutter neighborhoods where every house is the exact same. Which to some extent defeats the purpose of marketing as it doesn't stand out at all, just sanitized sameness. It's boring and a bit creepy.

Re: Uber’s Anthropic AI push hits a wall

#49

Post by neilv »

> 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 power everything from ride-matching to pricing and bug fixes.

That's not a payoff.

What is the immediate cost of those code updates, what is the quality, how do they affect longer-term maintenance, how does that compare to doing it without "AI", etc.

Are these articles written to inform or to hype?

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There's my answer. Here's a helpful uBlock Origin filter:

    ||finance.yahoo.com^

Re: Uber’s Anthropic AI push hits a wall

#50

Post by mcmcmc »

mandeepj wrote: post #39
sd9 wrote: post #8

I 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…

I've never cared about those menu summaries! I always look at menu items and their descriptions. They are fine, at least to me.

More than half the menu item descriptions I see now are AI generated, and some are completely inaccurate.
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