The Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Uber Technologies Inc. for discriminating against passengers with disabilities, including those who use service animals and mobility devices such as stowable wheelchairs. Uber is the largest provider of ride-hailing services in the United States. The lawsuit seeks $125 million for individuals who have been subject to discrimination
To me this sounds like a fundamental problem with their business model. Private vehicles used for public transportation by people who aren’t well-trained commercial drivers.
I have always thought it was sketchy that we let random people in the US be commercial drivers for Uber without forcing them to get a new type of license or earn some kind of state certificate because most people are absolutely shit drivers and beyond that, there are rules for dealing with people (in this case disability stuff) that you should know if you drive the public.
Would you get in a car with that dude “Chad” who hangs out behind the bowling ally, or that chick “Tammy” who learned to drive from her highschool boyfriend who was a year or two older than her and basically got a rubber-stamped license because the US doesn’t actually take driver safety seriously?
See this is why I prefer robotaxis. At least I know I’ll get a consistent experience every time. They all drive exactly the same way and always arrive exactly at my set pickup spot. They never cancel rides because they don’t get too lazy to find the pickup spot I set. And the best part: No tipping.
Edit: Why the downvotes? Y’all have no idea what you’re missing out on. Radar-based self-driving cars are the future, whether you like it or not. As someone who has been on hundreds of rides, I can assure you that they’re they’re a hell of a lot better at driving at humans. I feel much safer in a robotaxi over an unpredictable Uber/Lyft driver.
Lemmy has a AI-Hate boner, so everytime someone talks about automation, their brains have an automatic response compelling them to downvote, not realizing that the correct reaction is not “oh no, robots are replaving us”, rather, it’s “Okay, now tax the rich and give evryone UBI”.
Jobs should be automated whenever possible, provided that it can meet safety requirements, but the profits from automation should belong to the people. In fact, people should outright (collectively) own that auto-taxi service.