Report: Software bug led to death in Uber’s self-driving crash
The fatal crash that killed pedestrian Elaine Herzberg in Tempe, Arizona, in March occurred because of a software bug in Uber’s self-driving car technology, The Information’s Amir Efrati reported on Monday. According to two anonymous sources who talked to Efrati, Uber’s sensors did, in fact, detect Herzberg as she crossed the street with her bicycle. Unfortunately, the software classified her as a “false positive” and decided it didn’t need to stop for her.
The ride services company said it was suspending North American tests of its self-driving vehicles, which are currently going on in Arizona, Pittsburgh and Toronto.
How Uber Uses Psychological Tricks to Push Its Drivers’ Buttons
And yet even as Uber talks up its determination to treat drivers more humanely, it is engaged in an extraordinary behind-the-scenes experiment in behavioral science to manipulate them in the service of its corporate growth — an effort whose dimensions became evident in interviews with several dozen current and former Uber officials, drivers and social scientists, as well as a review of behavioral research.
Uber’s innovations reflect the changing ways companies are managing workers amid the rise of the freelance-based “gig economy.” Its drivers are officially independent business owners rather than traditional employees with set schedules. This allows Uber to minimize labor costs, but means it cannot compel drivers to show up at a specific place and time. And this lack of control can wreak havoc on a service whose goal is to seamlessly transport passengers whenever and wherever they want.
Uber helps solve this fundamental problem by using psychological inducements and other techniques unearthed by social science to influence when, where and how long drivers work.
Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber
Over the next few months, I began to meet more women engineers in the company. As I got to know them, and heard their stories, I was surprised that some of them had stories similar to my own. Some of the women even had stories about reporting the exact same manager I had reported, and had reported inappropriate interactions with him long before I had even joined the company. It became obvious that both HR and management had been lying about this being “his first offense”, and it certainly wasn’t his last.
Uber, But For Benefits: NY Tech Companies Propose a Gig Economy Solution
Uber is the largest and best-known company in the so-called gig economy, an umbrella term used to describe largely app-based platforms that offer a range of on-demand services: Handy offers variety of housekeeping services, its thousands of cleaners taking appointments with as little as a day’s notice; Josephine sell users gourmet meals prepared by one of the company’s distributed network of cooks; Jiffy, whose headquarters are in Toronto, dispatches licensed technicians to install your home appliances.
[…]
The growing sector isn’t known for its workplace benefits, but the industry says that’s about to change. The state is considering a bill that these companies say will provide much-needed relief to Parmar and others like him. Championed by Handy and Tech NYC, a newly formed statewide tech-industry trade association that includes Uber, the legislation would lay the foundation for the first-ever “portable” benefits plan for gig economy workers.
[…]
“This bill is pure capitulation,” says Bhairavi Desai, founder and executive director of the Taxi Workers Alliance. “Companies, whether it’s Uber or Handy, they’re not looking to make concessions. They’re looking to have labor capitulate and have politicians lay down that framework for capitulation.”Desai says the bill offers companies valuable ammo to defend themselves against costly misclassification lawsuits.
[…]Chris Townsend is director of field mobilization for the Amalgamated Transit Union. ATU already represents New York City bus drivers and is seeking to organize a citywide union for Uber drivers. Townsend isn’t just critical of the proposal’s independent-contractor mandate. He says the benefits are paltry too. The current figure of two and a half percentof each job is unimpressive —Parmar, for example, would earn about $3.21 in benefits in an average workday under the existing proposal And anyways, he adds, drivers can already purchase health insurance on their own. “What is it that they’re giving them that’s new?” Townsend asks. “I don’t see what the big innovation is with someone saying, ‘We’re gonna segregate your funds into an account.’ ”
Uber defies demand to cease self-driving
Uber has been told its self-driving cars are illegal - but it is refusing to take them off San Francisco’s roads.
The company started testing the vehicles this week, but the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) has said the firm must have a test permit.
Uber said it did not need one as they have a safety driver at the wheel, and is going to ignore the demand.
oops
For anyone who’s snagged a ride with Uber, Ward Spangenberg has a warning: Your personal information is not safe.
Internal Uber employees helped ex-boyfriends stalk their ex-girlfriends and searched for the trip information of celebrities such as Beyoncé, the company’s former forensic investigator said.
“Uber’s lack of security regarding its customer data was resulting in Uber employees being able to track high profile politicians, celebrities, and even personal acquaintances of Uber employees, including ex-boyfriends/girlfriends, and ex-spouses,” Spangenberg wrote in a court declaration, signed in October under penalty of perjury.
After news broke two years ago that executives were using the company’s “God View” feature to track customers in real time without their permission, Uber insisted it had strict policies that prohibited employees from accessing users’ trip information with limited exceptions.
But five former Uber security professionals told Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting that the company continued to allow broad access even after those assurances.
Thousands of employees throughout the company, they said, could get details of where and when each customer travels. Those revelations could be especially relevant now that Uber has begun collecting location information even after a trip ends.
Uber’s Ad-Toting Drones Are Heckling Drivers Stuck in Traffic
Drivers stuck in traffic in Mexico City lately have found themselves being buzzed by a fleet of sign-toting drones. “Driving by yourself?” some scolded in Spanish. “This is why you can never see the volcanoes”—a reference to the smog that often hovers over the mega-city and obscures two nearby peaks.
It wasn’t exactly a plea for environmentalism, though—it was an ad for UberPOOL, part of Uber’s big push into markets across Latin America.
from the cyberpunk dystopia file
“Self-Driving Cars Set for Takeoff” - Jeff Swensen for The New York Times
The times when my safety driver had to take control were less about the car doing something unsafe and more about it being confused about what its many sensors and cameras were recording. For example, the car didn’t know how to deal with a truck that was double-parked very well. It read the truck as a vehicle stopped in the road, but it didn’t have the context to know that it wasn’t going to move any time soon, so we just sat behind it until the driver pulled around it.
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