Babe wake up, Uber is an "AI" company now... 

Somehow, the same company that turns Corolla’s into tax write-offs has now figured out how to rent out our brain cells too. The company announced a new feature letting drivers make money by completing “digital tasks” for its AI division. Which sounds fancy until you realize that means your Uber driver can now upload photos, record voice samples, or label data… all from the same phone that’s running Google Maps and overheating on the dash.

(Source: Giphy) 

Of course, Uber says it’s “not about replacing drivers with autonomous vehicles,” which is exactly what someone says when they’re replacing drivers with autonomous vehicles. Case in point: The chief product officer even called it an “interesting coincidence” that they’re launching this while expanding AV partnerships. Yeah, and it’s an interesting coincidence my wife said she had a headache seconds after I told her she was looking like a snack. 

(Source: Bloomberg) 

But alas, the company has been testing this in India already, and now it’s coming to the U.S., where gig workers can finally experience the joy of labeling AI data for less than minimum wage and cleaning vomit out of the backseat in the same shift. Meaning, this is Uber’s master plan in action: convert its 9 million global drivers into a low-cost, global data farm. Translation: They are turning their drivers into their own CPU’s. 

And, the best part, is that Uber gets paid on both ends. The riders fund the gas, the AI clients fund the burnout. And investors get to pretend they own an AI company instead of a logistics platform built on borrowed cars and broken dreams. The result is that if Wall Street believes Uber is becoming an AI-adjacent company, the stock rerates overnight. Which is actually funny, especially since Uber is down -3% over the past five days (upon the announcement). 

(Source: Giphy) 

Of course, we may see a shift in sentiment this week… but for now, the savvy ones are seeing this for what it really is: Drivers aren’t being upskilled or trained into AI operators. They’re just human middleware…plugging gaps in machine learning pipelines until those pipelines can run without them. Bold strategy Cotten, let’s see if it pays off for ‘em…

So yeah, place your bets accordingly, friends. Until next time… 

At the time of publishing, Stocks.News holds positions in Uber as mentioned in the article.