Uber will offer gig work like AI data labeling to drivers while not on the road

Gig Work vs Employment and Labor Protections

• Many see Uber’s expansion into AI labeling as a continuation of undermining basic labor protections by misclassifying de facto employees as “contractors.”
• Others argue contract/casual work has legitimate uses (e.g., lawn care, one-off jobs) and should remain legal; the disagreement is whether Uber-style platforms fit that category or are simply employment in disguise.
• One side insists ride-hailing was historically done by employees or true independents and could be again; the other worries banning gig structures would harm workers who currently depend on them.

Power, Regulation, and Collective Action

• Several comments blame governments’ inaction on corporate money: lobbying, legal firepower, and the ability to move faster than regulators.
• There’s nostalgia for unions and labor protections, with irony that “apps for strikes” resemble unions minus legal backing.
• Some note voters themselves helped entrench contractor status in places like California, often after heavily funded corporate campaigns.

Exclusivity, Multi-Platform Work, and Exploitation

• Debate over whether Uber (or any employer) should tolerate workers doing DoorDash/Lyft while “on the clock.”
• Counterargument: when companies fight hard to classify workers as contractors and pay poorly, they forfeit moral authority to demand exclusivity.
• Broader critique that modern work often approaches “partial slavery” in expectations over workers’ time and freedom.

AI Revolution: Hopes vs Reality

• Strong sense of dystopia: instead of automating boring/dangerous tasks, AI is used to replace creative/white-collar work while hiring humans to do tedious labeling.
• Complaints that AI is amplifying spam, robocalls, and content “slop” rather than freeing people’s time.
• Some argue history shows automation rarely yields mass leisure; benefits accrue mainly to capital owners, not displaced workers. Others counter that overall job quality has improved over centuries.

Replacing Yourself with AI and Resistance Ideas

• Multiple anecdotes about being recruited to label data or design systems aimed at eliminating their own roles (engineering, SRE, art).
• Some suggest workers should accept the money but deliberately poison training data to sabotage these systems.
• A minority view sees Uber’s move as a transitional cushion for drivers as autonomy advances, while critics frame it as paying people to accelerate their own obsolescence.

Cultural and Political Framing

• Frequent comparisons to cyberpunk, “corpo” dystopias, and the opposite of Star Trek’s post-scarcity vision.
• Side discussion on lottery-based political representation as a way to counter elite capture and corporate power.