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Uber Seeks Patent For AI That Determines Whether Passengers Are Drunk (cnet.com)

In an effort to "reduce undesired consequences," Uber is seeking a patent that would use artificial intelligence to separate sober passengers from drunk ones. The pending application details a technology that would be used to spot "uncharacteristic user activity," including passenger location, number of typos entered into the mobile app, and even the angle the smartphone is being held. CNET reports: Uber said it had no immediate plans to implement the technology described in the proposed patent, pointing out the application was filed in 2016. "We are always exploring ways that our technology can help improve the Uber experience for riders and drivers," a spokesperson said. "We file patent applications on many ideas, but not all of them actually become products or features."

10 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. WTF? by NerdENerd · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Being drunk is why I am getting an Uber FFS. If they wont pick me up drunk then they have lost my business.

    1. Re:WTF? by jrumney · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You miss the point of this AI. It is to help Uber drivers find victims, not to avoid them.

  2. Re: Number of typos? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Makes you wonder, from all the data collected by our devices, how long it will be before data exposure becomes timed and behavior (purchasing, politics, etc) is manipulated, all based on "anonymous" metadata.

    Oh wait, Trump. Oh, wait, Obama. Freedom was nice while it lasted.

  3. Why not use on DRIVERS too? by THE_WELL_HUNG_OYSTER · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...because isn't that more important?

  4. Just a Thought by dohzer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    While they're at it, can they patent a car that doesn't kill pedestrians?

  5. Not AI by mrbester · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As someone pointed out on Twitter, this isn't AI but an if statement.

    --
    "Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
  6. Re:So patent system abuse then? by blackest_k · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It doesn't matter, as someone who has done private hire, from experience, when a pub wants to get rid of a customer who is too drunk, somebody else calls the cab.

    You go out for the job and then have to decide if its worth picking up the drunk or not.

  7. More to the point, this is patentable? by thesupraman · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So, training a machine learning with sampled data is now patentable?
    Does that also mean I can patent 'Training a person to .......'?
    That has never been allowable before, why is it allowable now?

    Oh, I forgot, the US patent office allows large US companies to patent ANYTHING, totally ignoring actual patent law.

  8. AI? Are you kidding? by old_skul · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It doesn't take a whole lot of AI to know that pretty much EVERY passenger is drunk when you're driving Uber at 2AM in a university area.

  9. Simpler solution by TraumaFox · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm willing to bet that you'd get a better ratio of honest answers by simply presenting an "Are you drunk?" checkbox than all the false positives you'd get from trying to use AI to determine drunkenness.