Uber Expands Gig Workforce by Onboarding Freelance Coders for AI Initiatives -

Uber Technologies has now incorporated programmers into its gig-economy workforce. The company is expanding its scope beyond ridesharing to explore a burgeoning new domain: aiding other businesses in outsourcing part of their artificial intelligence development to independent contractors.

The recently launched AI training and data labeling division, dubbed Scaled Solutions, builds on an internal team that manages extensive annotation tasks for Uber’s rideshare, food delivery, and freight divisions. As mentioned on its website, Scaled Solutions has commenced servicing other companies that require high-quality datasets. Noteworthy clients include Aurora Innovation Inc., an Uber-supported company developing self-driving software for commercial trucks, and Niantic, the game developer renowned for Pokémon Go.

Uber’s venture into data labeling services has not been covered previously. This initiative could allow the company to seize a share of a growing market, as global enterprises rely on human input to verify data used for training AI models. Scale AI, which offers similar services and is valued at $14 billion, is one of the most prominent startups in the artificial intelligence sector.

The rideshare giant has substantial experience in recruiting contractors, having done so for years with drivers and couriers. Now, the company is optimistic about supporting other businesses by employing a sufficient number of skilled workers capable of annotating images, text, and videos with contextual information, assisting machine learning models in recognizing patterns and making precise predictions and recommendations.

To broaden this service for more companies, Uber recently started onboarding contractors with diverse skill sets in India, the US, Canada, Poland, and Nicaragua. Pay will vary depending on the completed tasks and will be issued monthly, as outlined in the FAQ section of its onboarding site, distinct from the platform for hiring drivers and delivery personnel.

Additionally, corporate job openings exist for account executives based in San Francisco, New York, and Chicago, who will manage Uber’s relationships with Scaled Solutions’ enterprise clients.

“Having executed these tasks at scale over the past decade as part of our growth, we possess a comprehensive understanding of the needs of businesses seeking these services,” remarked an Uber spokesperson in an email. Hiring independent contractors aligns “with our expertise as one of the world’s largest providers of flexible work opportunities,” the spokesperson added.

The company did not disclose revenue figures or customer counts, nor did it detail its pricing model for projects.

Uber’s internal Scaled Solutions team operates in the US and India and utilizes both human resources and automated systems to assist in map validation and accurate translations to adapt its rideshare service across various markets. The team has also digitized restaurant menu photos for the Uber Eats app and tested new features on thousands of mobile devices.

Externally, the team is helping Aurora ensure precision when its software recognizes objects on the road, such as pedestrians, debris, and other vehicles, according to an Aurora spokesperson. Moreover, Uber’s contractors have evaluated location data for Niantic, which aims to create a 3D map of the world for its augmented reality experiences and other gaming projects, as stated by Erin Schaefer, Niantic’s senior vice president overseeing game publishing and operations.

Furthermore, Uber plans to hire workers to utilize their cultural insights to customize products for local markets or apply their programming skills to evaluate an AI chatbot’s responses concerning software engineering inquiries.

Before launching the platform publicly, Uber began recruiting freelancers with coding or linguistic skills to help assess the outputs of large language models, which are foundational to generative AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft Corp’s Copilot.

An unnamed software engineer from India reported being given two AI-generated responses to a complex coding question, directed to compare and rate the accuracy of these answers against several criteria, such as functionality, efficiency, and code formatting, based on documents reviewed by Bloomberg News. The engineer mentioned completing three queries for a fee of 200 rupees ($2.37) per set.

It remains unclear how wages will differ across various locations where Uber is onboarding contractors for Scaled Solutions. The tasks available are similar to those found on existing annotation platforms like Scale AI’s Remotasks or Data Annotation Tech, which have attracted remote workers seeking to earn supplemental income through online gig work.

This industry has also faced criticism for underpaying outsourced workers in developing countries. For example, Remotasks claims on its website to offer up to $18 per hour for English-speaking, US-based workers, but a report by The Verge revealed that a Remotasks employee in Nairobi earned only about $10 for annotating 8 hours of video footage for self-driving cars.

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