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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Uber Submits Patent Application for Algorithm to Determine How Drunk Potential Passengers Are
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(Score: 5, Insightful) by Entropy on Thursday June 14 2018, @10:02PM (14 children)
Uber(and Lyft) are the great leap forward in preventing drunk driving since we've had cars. They really shouldn't be allowed to not pick up drunk passengers..what exactly is the alternative?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by black6host on Thursday June 14 2018, @10:15PM (1 child)
I don't think they won't pick them up. Information is worth money. This is just more information. Now who will consume that info besides Uber itself?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @11:38PM
Sell the information to the insurance company so they don't have to pay for a liver transplant.
(Score: 1, Troll) by VLM on Thursday June 14 2018, @10:40PM (7 children)
Next thing you know we'll be forcing people to make wedding cakes for gay couples.
Slavery really isn't dead in the USA, its just hidden. If, as owned property, you're not allowed to say "no" to an economic transaction, then you're a slave.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Thursday June 14 2018, @11:24PM (1 child)
Bigotry and hate are alive and well also.
We'll probably always have them.
The people who rely on government handouts and refuse to work should be kicked out of congress.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 15 2018, @12:31AM
The little girl screamed in pain and begged the man for mercy. In response, the man stopped violating her and started searching his person for something. He checked his pockets, his wallet, and his jacket, and then shook his head as though to indicate that he could not find whatever he was looking for. After this, he grinned; it was truly terrifying, as was apparent from the girl's expression of horror. Indeed, this man had no mercy to spare. Thus, the agonized screams resumed and continued for hours to come...
On that day, a child's mutilated, violated corpse was tossed into a dumpster as if it were nothing more than trash. And it was trash, since there was nothing left to utilize.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @11:48PM (4 children)
You'll probably have a hard time finding a liberal around here who thinks this is a totally fine invasion of privacy.
Try again with your strawman, maybe it is time to realize why government regulation is an incredibly GOOD thing. Such as making a law against this sort of invasive tracking / analyzing. Anyone caught trafficking private data will be punished accordingly, it is the new drug war! the INFO WARS!
Oh you're losing by the way. I'm not gloating, it actually is pretty sad how you infowars devotees are so bent in the brain.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 15 2018, @12:37AM (3 children)
While I agree we need serious improvements when it comes to privacy, I have very little confidence in governments which themselves conduct unconstitutional mass surveillance on the populace, as the US government does.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday June 15 2018, @01:46PM (2 children)
Trust the government. The solution is government regulation. There is no problem so great it cannot be solved by adding a new government regulation. Even too much government regulation can be solved by adding more government regulation. And taxes.
The people who rely on government handouts and refuse to work should be kicked out of congress.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 15 2018, @04:50PM (1 child)
Some things do require laws.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday June 18 2018, @02:43PM
Yes. Some things do require laws. I strongly agree. There is a middle ground between don't regulate anything, and too much regulation.
The people who rely on government handouts and refuse to work should be kicked out of congress.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday June 14 2018, @10:43PM (2 children)
It could act as a warning to the driver. "Put the plastic sheeting down and get out the barf bag, you have another live one."
Except if an Uber driver is picking up a passenger at a certain location and a certain time of the night, they already know they are going to run into drunkards. They don't need a keylogger algorithm to tell them.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MostCynical on Thursday June 14 2018, @11:31PM
Remember, Uber is all about variable pricing.
This will just give them an opportunity to put a loading on the quote, up front.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 15 2018, @05:36AM
What it's really going to be about is fleecing people under the influence by charging them more, plain and simple.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 15 2018, @02:37AM
Try catching a cab late at night in New Orleans while holding a hurricane glass.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday June 14 2018, @10:42PM
The illegal taxi biz is all about groups, and drunks are usually in groups. So the conference or whatever ends and here comes the drunks is economically valuable intel on a large enough scale.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday June 14 2018, @11:02PM (5 children)
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 ?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday June 14 2018, @11:21PM (1 child)
What makes you think those positives were false positives? Any basis for that assumption?
The people who rely on government handouts and refuse to work should be kicked out of congress.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday June 14 2018, @11:32PM
Read it again. "Was deemed" is the key.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Thursday June 14 2018, @11:27PM (1 child)
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?).
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Thursday June 14 2018, @11:39PM
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
Internal testing at Uber detected too many false positives? Right ...
(Score: 4, Interesting) by DannyB on Thursday June 14 2018, @11:12PM (1 child)
Wouldn't it be more useful to determine how drunk the driver is? Especially considering this is Uber we're talking about.
It seems that an Uber driver wanting to detect the drunkfulness of a passenger would be of aid in spotting persons they can victimize. Financially, sexually, or with magic markers.
The people who rely on government handouts and refuse to work should be kicked out of congress.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 15 2018, @02:58AM
If you want fairness, take a legal cab, with regulated rates.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Friday June 15 2018, @01:19AM (8 children)
In other words, their AI is nothing more than a tracking system that pings the users location. if they are at a bar for an hour, maybe they're just buzzed or tipsy. Two hours? Most likely drunk but not stammering. Over two hours, get the mop...
(Score: 2) by lentilla on Friday June 15 2018, @02:12AM (7 children)
from the article:
Perfectly plausible; and coupled with location, time, user parameters and history; likely quite accurate.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday June 15 2018, @02:30AM (6 children)
Permissions. Why do people grant apps so many permissions? Why does a taxi-hailing application need access to all of the hardware on your device? Why does it need access to ANYTHING? An app that calls a taxi should proved one thing, and one thing only. A taxi. It doesn't need anything else. Yet, people grant those permissions - just click through them.
And, of course, it isn't just a Uber app - it's ALL applications!!
(Score: 2) by lentilla on Friday June 15 2018, @04:06AM (5 children)
Because there is no way to use the app if the permission isn't granted. (But you already knew that.)
We will never win a war against unnecessary permissions requirements. My solution is far more simple: sandboxing of apps and provision of curated data. If an app "requires" location data - no problem - give it to them. Just filter it through my rules first. If an app "requires" access to my contact list - fine - give it to them, but surprisingly it contains only fictional entities. Ditto with all the other required data.
It's the same way we deal passive-aggressive bullies in real life when being reasonable doesn't work. Whenever they "demand" something, we say "yeah, OK" and feed them junk whenever they bother us for something.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 15 2018, @02:04PM (1 child)
This is a REAL answer to the problem.
The question is, and I think I know the answer, is it even technically possible to have such a "fake data" shim in non-hacked iPhone or Android?
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday June 15 2018, @07:03PM
A fake data shim would be nice, and should be possible on Android, although I've never actually seen one...but it's not really necessary as you can just deny those permission to those apps. If your brand of Android doesn't include that feature, get a different one. It's been available in Cyanogenmod/LineageOS for many years, but a similar feature has been included in the official Google builds too since Android 6.0. And Android 6.0 is two and a half years old now. The only reason you wouldn't have that ability on Android is if you bought a phone that either hasn't been updated in years or that was designed to intentionally remove security features. So...don't run software that hasn't been patched for three years, and don't run software that is specifically designed to violate your privacy and restrict your control over it. There's your solution.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday June 15 2018, @02:32PM
THAT was the proper answer to my question, as well as the next question. "Why are people using apps that require all those permissions.
Fine, I won't use the apps. There is no app that I've ever seen that offers value to pay for all of the data that can be stolen from my device, and from my life.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday June 15 2018, @06:52PM
I just have to go into Settings > Privacy > Privacy Guard and I can retroactively deny any permission to any app. I can also generally deny at runtime...even though you have to approve all the permissions to install the app, for things like microphone access or reading the contact list it'll still pop up an approval dialog the first time the app attempts to use that permission. And I can absolutely still use apps if I deny them access to whatever they want (although obviously certain features may not work right). Most of my apps are not actually given the full permissions that they've requested -- every time I install a new app I go through and deny anything that I don't think it really needs. If your phone doesn't let you do that, it's not because it's "impossible"; it's just because your phone sucks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 16 2018, @04:55AM
It's called Free Software, or software that respects users' freedoms. Due to the nature of Free Software, it is very unlikely to abuse users since it could be trivially modified to not do so. This is why corporations attack it and/or try to ignore it entirely in favor of the more corporate-friendly "open source" movement, which does not maintain that it is unethical for software to not respect users' freedoms.
Insist on Free Software, or don't be surprised when you are abused. Feeding the proprietary apps false information is only a half-measure, if even that.