Tag: ai

Delivery Workers Pay the Price for AI Slop at UberEATS

UberEATS reckless use of ai is leading to a toxic environment for delivery workers in the Netherlands. This post shares some real-world grievances with examples.

cover image by luisdmp94
The ai can know when restaurants are closed, so it can use this to sabotage delivery workers who cant afford to cancel an order, by sending them to the closed restaurant(riders have to cancel when a restaurant is closed). If you think this wouldnt happen, think again.
Alexis: “we delivery drivers have to pay for ubers mistakes”.
Elevators cause trouble when doing a work as a delivery worker because network connections are lost. 1 mistake like doing anything inside the ubereats app, and it costs the worker a hard-earned bonus and a lower group assignment (less shifts to plan) on top of that.
The ai system creates an environment where mistakes and accidents can happen easily. To address these problems workers need to go through complicated ticket systems, that were designed for software issues and not real-world real problems. The suppert system is designed to drain workers efforts so they dont even try. Most riders dont ever try to address issues by reqcing out to another ai bot.
A rider points out correctly that it is illegal (and outright reckless) to use these kinds of systems to manage work and points to AVG law.

Worker Sabotage by OpenAi + UberEATS

Several delivery workers started reporting (oktober 2025 am nwards in rotterdam and amsterdam) that they are stopped from getting normal orders when they near bonusses.

So when a worker nears the conpletion of a bonus the openai algorithm offers orders in another city that will ensure the bonus is impossible to reach by the worker.

Being sent to a far-off destination as a worker on your last trip for a bonus is a common complaint from uber delivery workers in 2025 in Netherlands.
Ai optimization by sabotage.

At the same time the ai demands that all orders have to be accepted to remain eligible for the bonus.

Delivery workers respond to expectedly by sabotaging the ai right back at it.
The openai-ubereats ai is trying to avoid paying workers bonus incentives.

There is no realtime feedback inside the app either. Workers receive a performance report 7 days later.

Delivery workers share their frustrations about the new ai system at ubereats in 2025.
A delivery worker reporting that they get plenty of orders in the morning, but not so much towards the end of their shift in the evening; so they miss the bonus target.
A delivery worker reports that the last order they accepted was at a restaurant were they had to wait long enough to miss the bonus payment. The ai already knew this information (the worker received 3 repeated orders to pick up this specific order). Ultimately the worker gave up and missed the bonus, while having worked a full working day to try and work hard to get it.

How To Scam Employees with Advanced Reasoning Models

Screen capture from UberEATS Driver app that refuses to present orders to a delivery worker that reaches the final stage of a bonus. Bonus incemtives are used to get riders to do more orders, but the ai is using advanced reasoning ai models to not pay the worker and sabotage work.

Link to screencapture here.

The AI Horror Show Continues

The ai is using all available information to sabotage worker statistics so riders can be denied payment while working the hardest they can. We think we can make the bonuses but the ai misleads us by giving us insane orders that ensure we get paid too little.

Its like having a very ill sadistic manager that does everything in his/her power to sabotage your work.

Delivery worker anacyoung reaction: “I received my daily performance and they must be kidding. It says I received 20 orders and only accepted 7. After 8pm (my shift ended 8:30) I was receiving only orders from places that were 20-30min away from me. However, it as telling that the place was like 15min away from me and the total time was 12min. The total time was always under the time I needed to arrive to the place, which doesn’t make any sense. Should I talk now to a coordinator or should I wait for the groups and appeal?”
anacyoung: “I ended up with 35% acceptance rate”

What To Do as a Delivery Worker

Support at ubereats are ai agents. They dont understand what we are trying to say, or dont want to understand or even worse: they think its a normal part of the job to be incentivized by bonuses and then be sabotaged by an ai.

The best thing to do is to explain to customers what is going on and ask customers to reconsider where they order food.

Also building a case against ai practices that are not transparant. Hopefully this post and others on goridergo and elsewhere will help with the fight against the use of toxic ai.

More info

UberEATS has a partnership with OpenAI.