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Uber will offer gig work like AI data labeling to drivers while not on the road

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Re: Uber will offer gig work like AI data labeling to drivers while not on the road

#51
post #9
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you want to pay someone to do something employ them. There is a purpose for casual/contract labor. If I want my lawn mowed, some basement junk hauled away, or my house painted, I want someone on contract/gig to do something for me, but I sure don’t want to hire an employee. How that person chooses to relate to an employer (whether to be self-employed or work for someone else) is their business, not a concern of…

Is there an Uber for lawn mowing?

They're really missing out by not moving into federal services. Current administration would be all over firing federal employees and paying a fraction to gig employees.

Re: Uber will offer gig work like AI data labeling to drivers while not on the road

#52
If you want to keep your jobs, then it’s time to poison that well. Take their money, and provide critically flawed feedback to hobble their machines. (Insert “bodies upon the gears” speech by Mario Salvo at Berkeley)

Edit: Berkeley, not Kent State

Re: Uber will offer gig work like AI data labeling to drivers while not on the road

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty wishful thinking to think software and hardware is advanced enough to figure out very advanced materials science and physics to do those tasks requiring manipulation of objects in the real world. Maybe it happens, maybe it doesn’t, but manipulating digital output seems like a step that would come before manipulating real world objects.

I think you need to get past the literal examples to the concept that they are saying "I wanted AI to free me from the mundane, not imprison me with it". This has long been the promise from the same people who now appear to be quite happy to turn us into the Matrix-style feedstock for AI (again, not literal - but maybe literally?). Natural extrapolation: they may be the last to go, but it won't need them either. How…

> How can so many smart people all be Wile E. Coyote?

Money. A whole lot of money. They won't live in the dystopian reality of most people in the near future, they'll buy their way out and live their comfortable lives.

Re: Uber will offer gig work like AI data labeling to drivers while not on the road

#55

in most regions Uber drivers are being paid an hourly wage so yeah I think this makes sense. They can answer support calls too. Despite getting an Uber hourly wage many game the system by taking DoorDash and Lyft orders while on the job. Should your employer tolerate you working another job while you are being paid to do yours?

you can stop working at any time, so that's what they do, and then start working for another company. Any employer can't have a problem with working a second job, so long as you're not violating a non-compete.

Pretty tough to have a non-compete when you're casual and/or a contractor. Some jurisidctions make this illegal in even more of an employer/employee relationship, most aren't going to enforce it in an Uber-style job, and it would never be cost-effective for Uber et al. to go after a contractor. They would just kick the "offender" off the platform - which might still be very bad for them.

Re: Uber will offer gig work like AI data labeling to drivers while not on the road

#56

Somebody really needs to put a stop to what Uber and the like are doing. They are doing their best to destroy basic labor protections, by circumventing employing their workers. Why are countries just allowing them to clown on established worker protections? If you want to pay someone to do something employ them . The roll out of the gig economy is only viable because it allows companies to push costs on to the labor…

> Why are countries just allowing them to clown on established worker protections?

Money - directly towards politicians.

Money - buys them the best lawyers for when they sit down with the government lawyers.

Money - allows them to move faster than the legal system can catch up.

Money - they focus all of their resources on doing the things we'd prefer they didn't, governments have other things to do deal with.

Re: Uber will offer gig work like AI data labeling to drivers while not on the road

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“I want my AI to handle my contracts so I can mow lawns in peace”. Ok now I see how that works! Thanks!

How far away are we from AI running the business (marketing, contracts, payment, scheduling, etc) while the humans compete with each other to do the lawn mowing for subsistence food & shelter? Put one of these tech bro CEOs in charge long enough for the AI to get good enough to do the top-level coordination and then recycle them into energy to power it all, and we're good to go!

A ways away. Anthropic tried recently and it went off the rails. https://www.anthropic.com/research/project-vend-1

Re: Uber will offer gig work like AI data labeling to drivers while not on the road

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get where you're coming from — the naively thought part. You may though just have to get a good deal more cynical. Perhaps you already are. Tech fascinated me as a kid—and, because of my age, we're talking Apollo-era tech, promises of a moon base, the introduction of the Metric system is U.S. schools, elementary school libraries full of science books for kids on chemistry, electricity, model rocketry, etc. I have c…

Hell, tech used to be.. it still is.. the thing I am interested in. It meant a cool future to look forward to. This for sure isn’t that.

To quote several other people who have made thoughtful pieces around this in the past: the futurism espoused by people like Elon Musk seeks to engage with the aesthetics of Star Trek, whilst ignoring entirely the post-scarcity socialism that Roddenberry’s worlds very clearly represented.

That’s not quite as apt today, as it seems he’s just as happy to engage with the aesthetics of Blade Runner while also cheerfully engaging with the fascist dystopia of Blade Runner…

Re: Uber will offer gig work like AI data labeling to drivers while not on the road

#59

in most regions Uber drivers are being paid an hourly wage so yeah I think this makes sense. They can answer support calls too. Despite getting an Uber hourly wage many game the system by taking DoorDash and Lyft orders while on the job. Should your employer tolerate you working another job while you are being paid to do yours?

Should it depend on the what that other job is?

An Uber driver doing DoorDash or Lyft between Uber work would be working for a direct competitor, whereas an Uber driver doing errands that require a car from TaskRabbit would not be working for a direct competitor.

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