Uber, Lyft sell virtually identical rides at vastly different prices, offer fake discounts using AI-driven pricing: bombshell investigation

Article excerpt

Uber and Lyft employ artificial intelligence to charge different passengers vastly different prices for nearly identical rides, according to a new investigation. The ride-sharing giants deploy opaque pricing algorithms that adjust fares in real time, and, more problematically, offer discounts that aren't actually discounts, simply marking down prices that were artificially inflated moments before. The practice leverages what the companies call dynamic pricing but what critics describe as algorithmic discrimination, allowing each company to extract maximum revenue from individual users based on factors invisible to riders. Neither company discloses how their AI systems calculate fares or what variables they weigh.