Uber wants to turn its millions of drivers into a sensor grid for self-driving companies
Key takeaways
- That is the direction we want to go eventually, Naga said of equipping human drivers vehicles.
- For now, AV Labs relies on a small, dedicated fleet of sensor-equipped cars that Uber operates itself, separate from its driver network.
- The insight driving the program, Naga said, is that the limiting factor for AV development is no longer the underlying technology.
Uber has a long-term ambition that goes well beyond shuttling passengers: the company eventually wants to outfit its human drivers cars with sensors to soak up real-world data for autonomous vehicle (AV) companies — and potentially other companies training AI models on physical-world scenarios.
Praveen Neppalli Naga, Uber s chief technology officer, revealed the plan in an interview at Tech Crunch s Strictly VC event in San Francisco on Thursday night, describing it as a natural extension of a nascent program the company announced in late January called AV Labs.
That is the direction we want to go eventually, Naga said of equipping human drivers vehicles. But first we need to get the understanding of the sensor kits and how they all work. There are some regulations — we have to make sure every state has [clarity on] what sensors mean, and what sharing it means.