Uber may soon know if you are drunk before they pick you up

Uber is looking at using artificial intelligence to determine if riders have had one beer too many, and then tailor its service accordingly. A patent application filed by the ridesharing company details how AI could be used to detect small changes in a rider’s behavior as they use the app to request an Uber. Titled “predicting user state using machine learning,” the patent doesn’t explicitly mention drunkenness or drug use. But its contents, which speak of “uncharacteristic user states” and “identifying a normal or abnormal state of the respective user,” suggest such matters may be at the center of the idea. Other conditions that could also conceivably lead to uncharacteristic behavior by a rider could also include extreme tiredness.