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

Posted by BeauHD on from the drunk-cabbing dept.

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."

13 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:WTF? by stephanruby · · Score: 3, Funny

      No, I think this patent was about their self-driving car. To be turing complete, a self-driving car should probably be able to yell at its passengers to sit the fuck back down and to put their pants back on before safely exiting the vehicle.

      Since they filed this application in 2016, at the time they probably still had high hopes for their self-driving platform.

    3. Re: WTF? by Mouldy · · Score: 4, Interesting

      That's fair enough, charge people who vomit more. But as someone who has gotten many ubers drunk, has never thrown up in or near an uber and generally doesn't cause a fuss...I don't want to be tarred with the same "all drunk people need to be charged more" brush.

      Maybe they should have some sort of star rating. Like, if you're an asshole, or you throw up in ubers, the driver could rate you badly. Then later uber drivers can charge more to pick up someone with a low rating. That way, good-passengers don't get penalised because of the idiotic minority - and the driver has an indication whether a potential passenger is likely to cause them problems.

      ...maybe that already exists...and this story is either; a lazy PR stunt (this doesn't need AI, but AI gets press), or a genuine greedy attempt at ripping more cash from their customer's hands.

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

    ...because isn't that more important?

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

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

  4. 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!"
  5. Anyone have a link to the patent? by 91degrees · · Score: 2

    I'm no patent lawyer, so maybe I'm not up on the jargon, and maybe "Systems, methods, and vehicles for taking a vehicle out-of-service" means "detecting if someone is drunk", but the link here and in the article seem to point me to an unrelated patent.

  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.

    --
    Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
  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 this, AI that... by Tsolias · · Score: 2

    what could've been solved with a simple air sensor detecting alcohol in the air, now it has to be "AI".
    But what I'm talking about... if it was for the sensor practical and 100% working solution, it wouldn't have made it to the news.
    meanwhile at Uber HQ: "Hello idiot investors. We have to use AI for this solution. Pliz gib more moneeh."
    Just your daily dosage of faux tech.

  9. 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.

  10. 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.