Study finds social bias in dynamic ride-hailing pricing

A large-scale preprint study of more than 100 million rides between 2018 and 2019 in Chicago, where a 2020 law requires ride-hailing apps to disclose fares, finds that the dynamic pricing algorithms used by ride-hailing companies such as Lyft, Uber, and Via are socially biased. The finding is in line with earlier studies by other organisations such as the Princeton Review that found bias in algorithmic pricing. The researchers found that prices for rides varied according to the average education levels, income, age, and house prices in neighourhoods where riders were picked up or dropped off. The authors of the study say that training machine learning systems on social data is likely to reproduce and embed biases in their datasets. 

https://venturebeat.com/ai/researchers-find-racial-discrimination-in-dynamic-pricing-algorithms-used-by-uber-lyft-and-others/

Publication: Venture Beat

Publication date: 2020-06-12

Writer: Kyle Wiggers