What Is Uber as a Business and Job? Truth Behind Fares, Pay, and Tech

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The long-term question hanging over the gig model is the fate of human labor. Uber sold off its internal self-driving division, Advanced Technologies Group, in 2020 after massive capital outlays and safety controversies. Rather than building robotic vehicles from scratch, the company positioned itself as the premier fleet commercialization partner.

Autonomous vehicle operators like Waymo and other robotics firms partner directly with Uber to handle dispatching, routing, and passenger payments. Instead of rendering the platform obsolete, autonomous driving developers rely on Uber’s established customer base to commercialize their hardware.

This transition poses structural risks for millions of drivers who rely on the platform for flexible income. While completely autonomous urban fleets remain years away from full global deployment, platform networks are already integrating autonomous vehicles into major metro areas, selectively assigning straightforward highway and airport routes to machines while leaving complex, labor-intensive trips to human contractors.