Uber's CEO thinks robotaxis will displace drivers in 10 to 15 years and create 'a big, big societal question' (www.businessinsider.com)

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi warned that self-driving cars will likely displace many ride-hailing drivers within 10–15 years, calling it “a big, big societal question” with no easy answer. He said human drivers will remain plentiful for the next 5–7 years as deployment scales, but pointed to early efficiency gains from Uber’s Waymo robotaxi service in Atlanta and Austin as evidence that autonomous vehicles can outperform most human drivers. Some drivers remain skeptical about real-world edge cases (potholes, unusual road events), underscoring ongoing reliability concerns. For the AI/ML community, the timeline and tone matter: widespread robotaxi adoption is credible enough to prioritize robustness, long-tail perception, safety validation, and large-scale model generalization. Early deployments highlight operational metrics (efficiency, uptime) and the need for comprehensive data labeling, simulation, and human-in-the-loop processes—areas Uber is already monetizing by offering labeling and data-processing gigs via its AI arm. Beyond engineering, the announcement elevates policy, retraining, and economic-mitigation as urgent cross-disciplinary problems: AI teams must deliver provably safe systems while the broader ecosystem designs reskilling pathways and new on-demand work models for displaced gig workers.