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posted by janrinok on Thursday June 14 2018, @09:53PM   Printer-friendly
from the I'll-be-walking-from-now-on dept.

Uber applies for patent to spot drunk passengers

Taxi app company Uber has applied for a patent to use artificial intelligence to determine how drunk potential passengers might be.

The app used to summon rides could also feed other information to the driver, including a passenger's location, how accurately they are typing and even the angle they are holding their phone at.

It could help drivers who do not want to pick up inebriated riders.

But critics said it could also be used to identify vulnerable passengers.

According to the application to the US patent office, the system would spot "uncharacteristic user activity".

Also at The A.V. Club.


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  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday June 14 2018, @11:02PM (5 children)

    by bob_super (1357) on Thursday June 14 2018, @11:02PM (#693234)

    Are they trying to reuse the algorithm they wrote to detect assholes, which they decided not to use after some internal testing was deemed to provide excessive false positives ?

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  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday June 14 2018, @11:21PM (1 child)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday June 14 2018, @11:21PM (#693242) Journal

    What makes you think those positives were false positives? Any basis for that assumption?

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Thursday June 14 2018, @11:27PM (1 child)

    by frojack (1554) on Thursday June 14 2018, @11:27PM (#693245) Journal

    Since Alice [jenner.com] its harder to patent an algorithm. Maybe by calling it "AI" they hope to sneak it by the examiners.

    (Why are there no consequences for examiners that grant patents for un-patent-able things?).

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    • (Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Thursday June 14 2018, @11:39PM

      by SomeGuy (5632) on Thursday June 14 2018, @11:39PM (#693251)

      How exactly does one patent an "AI" doing something anyway? It used to be that a patent had to more or less demonstrate how something worked. "AI" does not have any real way to prove what it does, nor solid specifications - someone just shits in to an I/O port until it "learns" what they think it should learn.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @11:42PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @11:42PM (#693252)

    Internal testing at Uber detected too many false positives? Right ...