Uber’s having drivers train its AI while partnering with robotaxi companies that could replace them

Uber, one of the OG tech disruptors, sure appears to be planning to disrupt its own workforce. Speaking at the Bloomberg Tech conference on Thursday, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said the company’s drivers can now make extra cash by helping train its AI.

The only issue: that AI may one day power autonomous vehicles that put human drivers out of business.

Khosrowshahi said Uber’s drivers and couriers are now “labeling maps, translating language, looking at AI answers, and grading AI answers” as part of the ride-hailing company’s effort to create “more work and earnings opportunities” for its gig workforce.

According to Khosrowshahi, this work will be “very small compared to the overall workload” of a typical driver.

This new gig income stream comes in a year that’s seen Uber roll out driverless rides in Austin through its partnership with Google-owned Waymo. The company plans to launch Waymo robotaxi rides in Atlanta this summer.

In the company’s earnings call earlier this month, Khosrowshahi said Uber’s Austin Waymos are “busier than 99% of [Uber’s] Austin drivers.”

Bloomberg has previously reported on Uber’s expansion of its of independent contractor workforce to include programmers and data labelers. The idea that its drivers are now AI trainers, too, appears to be new information.

The autonomous vehicle industry “represents a safer way of transportation,” Khosrowshahi said at the conference, adding that Uber has 18 partnerships in the AV ecosystem. The CEO has been very up-front about Uber’s plans to eventually phase out human drivers, telling The Wall Street Journal earlier this year that human driver displacement from AVs will occur within the next 15 to 20 years.

As of last September, Uber had more than 7 million drivers worldwide.