As the era of self-driving vehicles looms, Uber president and COO Andrew Macdonald says he doesn’t know what the company’s 10.5 million drivers and couriers will be doing in the near future.
The news: Macdonald made the remark during a discussion with Satish Kanwar (of BetaKit majority owner Good Future) as part of Toronto Tech Week’s Homecoming event on Wednesday. The duo spoke about Macdonald’s start as the company’s first Canadian general manager, his recent promotion to the C-suite, and how self-driving cars and AI will impact the labour market.
From the source: Macdonald told the crowd that he foresees the gig app’s labour market growing in the short term, but at some point, that trend will reverse as human drivers are no longer needed.
“I can’t specifically tell you what the 10.5 million people who earn money on Uber today are going to be doing in 15 years,” Macdonald said.
Following the thread: Uber is heavily invested in self-driving technology, including a tentpole investment in Toronto-based Waabi’s record-setting Series C round this year. Waabi is led by another member of Uber Canada’s founding team, CEO Raquel Urtasun, who Macdonald said is taking a novel approach that could potentially “end up short-circuiting the timeline” to bring self-driving tech to fruition.
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He said he’s “extremely confident” Uber will get there, not just in Toronto, but across Canada and the world.. While he didn’t have a specific date, joking dryly about regulatory constructs that need to be worked through, Macdonald added that self-driving cars will come to Toronto “soon.”
Final thought: Macdonald said Uber’s strategy is to become the platform for partners to deploy their autonomous vehicles, rather than to build those vehicles themselves. He compared the AI age to the industrial revolution, saying that there will be “losers” on the micro level, but that it will be broadly “fantastic” for society.
“I think we will see new industries emerge, and I think societal prosperity will ultimately triumph, but I can’t tell you exactly how it’s going to play out,” Macdonald said.
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Feature image courtesy Sarah Rieger for BetaKit.