Black woman charged more than white man for the exact same Uber ride in Toronto

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3 points·nivethan··3 comments

While we probably can’t fully discount the risk of bias in the algorithm it seems a lot more reasonable to assume this particular case is purely based on volatility of the fare. My wife (Asian) and I (White) often open Uber/Lyft at the same time to see what is the best fare and the results (she gets a better fair vs I do vs similar fare) appear essentially random or driven by whoever triggers the request first.

It’s possible that women in general are less price sensitive to cab fares because they are less likely than men to consider walking or public transit (due to a variety of factors from safety to comfort or placing more value on their time) so I could imagine this bias popping up in the pricing algorithm.

Black live matters. Uber discrimination. How that's even possible in 2021 ? Shame the regulators don't care!

Anyone who uses Uber knows the chance of this having to do with discrimination is bonkers. I've closed out Uber and reopened it (usually at the airport) and the price changes rapidly. Has to do with very changing surge pricing than skin tone.

I feel like you can critique that from a consumer POV but pretty dumb for them to write this article + headline unchallenged - when any user of the app knows that identical rides called 30 seconds apart are never going to be the same price.

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