Uber

Uber is going to put robotaxis in Madrid this year. The DGT’s response: we’ll see

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Robotaxis will arrive in Madrid before the end of the year. That is the headline you can read in the vast majority of media outlets. This is what Uber has made known, that has published the advertisement on your own website. There’s just one small problem: very few things are clear. The advertisement. With a press release that you can read on their own website. This is how Uber has announced that its robotaxis, in collaboration with WeRide and Avomo, will arrive in Madrid. In their press release they talk about collaboration with the regional government and the intention to launch the service before the end of the year. And little else. The information provided by the company about the project is, basically, that. It is barely mentioned that this is a pilot project and that they are willing to add “hundreds of robotaxis” as “key performance milestones are met” to “expand the commercial driverless taxi service to all urban areas.” many doubts. However, in the information that has been published there are many doubts that remain unresolved. In Xataka We have contacted Uber and WeRide but as of this writing we have not received answers to the following questions: How many cars will be available in the first phase? Will it be a service open to the entire city or will it be limited to specific neighborhoods in Madrid? Do Uber and WeRide already have permission to operate cars without a person on board? Will anyone be able to request a driverless vehicle to reach their destination? What the DGT says. The one who has answered our questions is the DGT. The organization assures us that they have no evidence that Uber or any other company associated with this project has requested permission to carry out tests of autonomous driverless cars. They also emphasize that, at this time, the companies in charge can only operate in “Test Mode” and, of course, “as long as they have been authorized to do so.” The latter, according to the DGT, has not occurred. What are the deadlines approved by the DGT? In its statement, Uber only mentions driverless vehicles but the DGT It refers us to the phases already approved to be able to carry out this type of tests. In these phases the most important points are the following: Controlled phase: no more than three autonomous cars and always with a safety operator behind the wheel. Extensive phase: no more than 10 vehicles and always with an operator behind the wheel. Pre-deployment phase: the limit of 10 vehicles is eliminated and the operator behind the wheel is optional but always has to supervise a remote operator. Right now, the only company that is in the “pre-deployment” phase is Tesla that is carrying out the tests of their FSD with 30 vehicles and have freedom of movement throughout the national territory. In collaboration with the Community of Madrid. In the text published by Uber it is mentioned that the arrival of the robotaxis to Madrid will be carried out “in collaboration with the Government of the Community of Madrid.” In Xataka We have tried to contact this party but have not received a response either. And, let’s talk about roads of regional or municipal ownership, the DGT has to give the go-ahead to be able to carry out this type of tests on Spanish soil. At first, from Expansion It was pointed out that two other municipalities, in addition to Madrid, would join the arrival of the aforementioned robotaxis and that companies such as Cabify or Bolt have also shown interest. At the moment, there is no more news on this. Europe. While in the United States and China the use of robotaxis is beginning to be normalized, Europe continues to be a forbidden field for them. Tesla has been pushing for some time your FSD is approvedpublishing videos collected in their tests in spaces as complicated to manage as Paris, Rome… or Madrid. The other test that had caught attention is the pilot project that is taking place in Zagrev (Croatia). There, 10 Arcfox Alpha T5 cars from the Chinese manufacturer BAIC offer commercial driverless taxi services, powered by the Chinese artificial intelligence company Pony.AI. Beyond. In China, as we say, the use of robotaxis is beginning to be widespread. Baidu’s Apollo Go, WeRide and Pony.AI have driverless vehicles that offer commercial services in cities such as Wuhan, Beijing, Shenzhen or Shanghai. However, the Chinese government itself is slowing down the arrival of automation in private passenger cars, especially after accidents involving some cars that had driving assistance functions active. In the United States, San Francisco and Texas or Los Angeles are the big places where autonomous taxis are tested. However, as the DGT suggests, the tests there began with humans at the wheel. And in some cases the service is limited in space and does not reach the entire city. Some doubts. The robotaxis service is one of the sectors that has moved and leveraged the most money in recent years. Also the one who has frustrated the most promises and money has burned. Billions of euros later and after a decade of intensive developmentits availability remains exceptional. Furthermore, robotaxis continue to generate doubts in the user. Transversal doubts from the moral dilemma to the purely practical debate. And in cities like San Francisco, the service is seen by many as an enemy not only for its ability to eliminate human jobs, but also for the problems that arise on a daily basis in case of facing an unforeseen event or, simply, if a blackout occurs. And in China they have also verified What happens when a system failure occurs and a hundred robotaxis are frozen in the middle of traffic. Some, frozen in the middle of a road with traffic on both sides. Photo | Jordi Moncasi and Uber In Xataka | Waymo’s self-driving cars have started honking at each other. At 4 in the morning

Uber has spent its annual AI budget in four months because AI is making us addicted to it

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Uber CTO Praveen Neppalli Naga recently explained how his company decided to deploy Claude Code to its 5,000 engineers. Adoption of the tool skyrocketed from 32% to 84% in one month, and everyone started using it so much that Uber ran into a problem: the real cost went from $500 to $2,000 per month per programmer, which destroyed the company’s spending forecasts: In four months the entire annual budget was spent to implement AI in the company. Welcome to the end of AI grants. Microsoft will also control spending. The Uber case is not an isolated event. Microsoft has virtually unlimited computing resources with Azure. However, has made the decision to withdraw Claude Code’s internal licenses from its developers in the Experiences + Devices division. The reason is twofold: first, they want to curb operating spending before the end of their fiscal year. Secondly, they want to force the use of their own tools with GitHub Copilot as the clear protagonist. GitHub ends its flat rate. This company, owned by Microsoft, also wants to prepare for the future, and from June 1, 2026 all GitHub Copilot plans abandon their “flat rate” option to move to a usage-based billing model. The base subscription price remains the same, but is converted into “AI credits” that will be consumed as the model is used. If developers use GitHub Copilot intensively, the credits will run out quickly and the system will stop unless we pay extra to continue working. On GitHub they pointed out that “charging a flat rate for autonomous agents is no longer sustainable.” Source: Hedgie (X). The graphic that explains it all. An X user named Hedgie warned that this is just the beginning and added a useful image to understand what is happening. The traditional SaaS (Software as a Service) software model works in a straight line. You pay a monthly fee and the server costs barely vary whether you use that app or service for ten minutes or ten hours: the profit margin is predictable, and the load is manageable. This is what happens with “flat rates” for streaming services, for example. Whether you watch more or fewer hours of Netflix doesn’t make a big difference to Netflix’s infrastructure. But agentic AI operates under an exponential curve. As seen in the image, when a programming AI agent like Claude Code starts working, it can use thousands or even millions of calls to the provider’s API (in this case, Anthropic) to receive, process and redeem millions of tokens. The flat rates offered by ChatGPT Plus or Claude Pro are adequate for conversational use of AI, but AI agents devour tokens and consumption skyrockets. That’s why Anthropic, OpenAI, and others put limits on their flat rates and even prohibit their use for agentic tasks (such as those provided by OpenClaw or scheduling agents). There they ask you to pay per use with the API, and that increases the costs. Crossroads. This situation puts companies like OpenAI, Anthropic and Google in a dilemma. If their clients (like Uber) begin to cut back on the use of AI to protect their budgets, these companies’ revenues may be dampened and that will affect their valuations. The other potential solution is to artificially lower prices to keep those customers happy, but that means absorbing significant operating losses that would harm your profitability. AI dependence and addiction. These companies are realizing that using AI can be really beneficial, but also expensive. Anthropic or OpenAI’s business model is not new, and we have seen that pattern in the past. A company launches a product or service, often free or very cheap, but after gaining a sufficient volume of users it ends up changing its conditions to charge you more and more for that product or service. It’s already happened. We have a good example in Google Photos or streaming services, which trapped us and then squeezed us with increasingly higher monthly fees. With AI the scenario is the same: catch us now with reduced costs and then cover the free service and make us pay if we really want to take advantage of it. There will always be alternatives such as using local models or opting for cheaper platforms, of course, but for those who offer the most advanced models and features the strategy is clear. In Xataka | Nvidia’s financial results are simply dizzying. And it still hasn’t sold a single chip in China

just bombed the “Uber of shahed drones” between Russia and Iran

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Although more than 90% of world trade travels by sea, there are routes that do not even appear on common trade maps and yet concentrate all types of critical flows of goods and technology. In some of these corridors, it is enough to turn off a simple transponder to disappear from the radar and turn an ordinary journey into something much more difficult to track. And one of them directly “connects” the war in Ukraine with that in Iran. The “Uber of the shahed.” Israel has found and beaten much more than a port: it has attacked the invisible highway that connected two apparently separate wars, that of Ukraine and the Middle East. As? For months, the Caspian Sea functioned as a discreet runner where Russia and Iran exchanged Shahed drones, ammunition and technology far from Western reach, a true “Uber of the Shahed” that moved weapons silently while the ships they turned off their transponders. This logistical system allowed the same drones that fell on kyiv or Kharkiv to also fuel attacks in the Gulf, and its partial destruction It not only aims to disrupt supplies, but also reveals the extent to which both conflicts are intertwined. A key route for two simultaneous wars. Because the Caspian corridor was not a secondary route, but a centerpiece of the Russian and Iranian military equipment, used to transport hundreds of thousands of projectiles and millions of ammunition, in addition to drones that both countries they already produce jointly. They remembered in the Wall Street Journal that Russia depended on this route to sustain its war effort in Ukraine, while Iran used it to project power in the Middle East, turning maritime traffic between Bandar Anzali and Russian ports into a critical logistics artery. Its hybrid nature, mixing civil commerce with military shipments, made its detection and blocking even more difficult. Technological and total war partners. I was counting this morning the financial times that the relationship between Moscow and Tehran has evolved from one-off cooperation to integration ever deeperone in which Russia provides intelligence, satellite images and technological improvements, while Iran provides expertise in cheap drones and mass production. However, that relationship is no longer one-way: Russia has perfected the Shahed in Ukraine (improving navigation, payload and jam resistance) and is now in a position to return Iran vmore advanced versionscapable of increasing the effectiveness of their attacks or serving as a basis for new generations of weapons. The Israeli coup and its effect. Apparently the attack against Bandar Anzali It has destroyed key infrastructure, from ships to command and maintenance centers, with the explicit aim of demonstrating that not even the Caspian is a safe space for Iran. Beyond the physical damage, the operation also seeks to disorganize temporarily the flow of weapons and send a strategic message: Israel can reach critical logistical nodes even in areas considered outside of direct conflict. Plus: By affecting a route that also transports civilian goods such as wheat or energy, the coup places additional pressure on Iranian internal stability. A system also vulnerable. Despite the impact, neither Russia nor Iran depend on a single path, and it is likely that redirect your shipments to other ports or routes, maintaining the flow, although with greater costs and delays. That said, the attack has exposed a structural weaknessThere is no doubt: the need to maintain discreet but concentrated logistics corridors, susceptible to being identified and hit. Put another way, modern war is not only fought on the front lines, but in these invisible networks that sustain production and supply. Strategic message. If you also want, what has happened in the Caspian redefines the map of the conflict, because it shows that wars are no longer a kind of watertight compartments, but rather interconnected systems where a logistics chain can feed multiple fronts. By bombing this route, Israel has not only hit Iran, but also indirectly the russian military machinery in Ukraine, showing that the battle for drones (and the chains that transport them) is a global conflict. From that prism, the “Uber of the Shahed” was not just another route: it was the symbol of a new form of war, one that is now also a priority objective. Image | Alma, Wikimedia, Kyiv City State Administration In Xataka | Drones and ballistic missiles have revolutionized warfare. Iran suspects there is another weapon: rain theft In Xataka | Iran has sent a message with a ballistic missile 4,000 km away: Europe is within reach, including Spain

drones converted into Uber of combat robots

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In Ukraine, the war is transforming at brutal speed due to the massive irruption of drones and robotsmachines and devices that have ceased to be a complement to central part of the fight. Every week they appear new shapes to use them to reconnoitre, attack, evacuate or move supplies without exposing soldiersand that is forcing us to adapt tactics almost in real time. What we did not imagine was to what extent. Cross a line. In Ukraine, this “machine war” has entered a phase as delusional as it is logicalone in which a drone is no longer just a weapon or an eye in the sky, but a means of transportation: Ukrainian soldiers have started using aerial drones as if they were improvised Ubers for combat robots, loading small ground vehicles and dropping them near Russian positions to save time and, above all, blood. The image was described by military commanders to the Insider mediumwhen the soldiers at the front saw with stupefaction and surprise the almost absurd scene (a flying platform carrying another armed platform), but which summarizes better than anything the technological moment of the front: the continuous impossible combinations that are born from a simple and brutal need, to put capabilities on the ground without exposing a human even a second more than is essential. The trick. Here is a company that we have talked before. Ark Roboticswhich supplies autonomous robots to more than 20 brigades, says that this tactic has even surprised its own CEO, Achi, who speaks on Insider under a pseudonym for safety and that when he saw it he reacted with a mixture of disbelief and alarm, before admitting that it made all the sense in the world. A large drone transports a small ground robot forward and “drops” it to deploy it directly where it matters, avoiding the most vulnerable part of the trip, that slow advance over land that exposes the UGV to mines, direct fire, mud, craters and detection. The idea is so simple that it is scary: it is not about inventing a marvel, but about skipping the route that produces casualties, and converting the deployment into something fast and safe for the human operator. Why does it make sense? The reason this madness works is that air and ground combat complement each other in modern warfare: aerial drones are numerous, can cover distances quickly and cross dangerous areas more easily, but they are noisy, visible and need to stay close to observe or attack. Terrestrial robots, on the other hand, they are slow to arrivebut when they are already in position they can do things that cannot be done in the same way from the air: get into trenches, enter shelters, approach without announcing their presence, place explosives, collect intelligence, shoot with more stability and remain hidden next to an enemy point as if they were part of the landscape. That species drone-Uber It precisely solves the bottleneck: it does not improve the robot itself, it improves “how you take it” to the place where it starts to be really dangerous. Ukrainian land robot Crazy innovation… with logic. This type of hybrid shows to what extent the war in Ukraine has become in a laboratory that no longer differentiates between classic categories, because everything is mixed in order to gain seconds and reduce casualties. It’s not just creativity: it’s creativity for survival, squeezing out any tool until you get uses from it that weren’t in the plans. Other manufacturers as Milrem Robotics They have also recognized that the Ukrainians have used their robots in unexpected waysand that pressure from the front is rewriting the design of systems in real time, in cycles of change so rapid that they seem impossible in traditional industry. The cost of speed. The problem for companies like Ark is that this “insane phase” of machine warfare forces them to innovate with a speed that can turn against: If you change too much, you no longer mass produce, and if you produce without changing, you fall behind. Achi describe an almost inhuman pace of iteration, with multiple modifications in weeks, and the permanent risk of following wrong trends that compromise reliability and volume. In practice, war requires them to do two incompatible things at once: experiment as an improvised workshop and manufacture as a real industry. The future that looms. Although hethe terrestrial robots are still a minority in the face of the torrent of aerial drones, the scene with Ark robots makes it clear that it is an expanding sector and that the front is pushing towards a model in which the front line is increasingly supported by machines. The company develops a system called Frontier to coordinate thousands of drones and robots with minimal human intervention, and the idea that floats above everything is as disturbing as it is coherent: if moving people near the front is increasingly absurd, war will tend to move machines, and Ukraine this exploiting that logic in a big way. Image | Ministry of Defense of Ukraine In Xataka | The drone war in Ukraine is scary for a reason: It’s called Sirius-82 and it has turned rivers into modern minefields In Xataka | Ukraine has called in a group of hunters for an unprecedented mission: to prevent Russian missiles from freezing it

Uber Eats abandons autonomous riders after the fight with Work

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Uber Eats had been moving for some time within the perimeter of a rule that the Government promoted to redefine the labor market fit for home delivery in Spain. That standard, known as ‘Rider Law‘, put the focus on a crack that had been at the center of the debate for years, the figure of the “false self-employed“, and has been pushing the sector towards employee models or towards schemes in which the employment relationship is channeled through third parties. In this context, the fact that the platform now announces its intention to stop working with self-employed delivery drivers is not only an operational adjustment, it is a movement that contributes to reordering one of the great debates of the delivery. The announcement that finalizes the turn. Uber Eats has communicated that it will stop working with self-employed delivery drivers in Spain and links it to its adaptation to the current labor framework after several years of changes in its operations. The company explains that delivery drivers who still use the application as self-employed will be able to continue delivering as employees through collaborating fleets. “Uber Eats reaffirms its commitment to compliance with the Rider Law. After four years in which we have accumulated extensive experience working with expert logistics companies, and with the aim of promoting a long-term sustainable model, we have made the decision to stop collaborating with autonomous delivery drivers.” What happened on the way. To understand the scope of the movement you have to look back. Uber Eats does not reach this point from a fixed position, but after several changes of course from the approval of the ‘Rider Law’. In 2021, the platform stopped operating with freelancers and moved to a labor model based on subcontractors. One year later, in August 2022, opened the door to self-employment again and adopted a hybrid scheme in which salaried fleet delivery drivers and self-employed workers coexisted, in a context in which Glovo persisted in that model. On paper, the solution proposed by Uber Eats is clear. Delivery drivers who still use their application as freelancers will be able to continue delivering, but no longer as self-employed workers, but as employees of one of the collaborating fleets with which the platform operates. In practice, the transition from self-employed to salaried usually involves changes in the organization of work and conditions, although Uber Eats has not detailed how it will be applied in each case or deadlines for this transition. Not all delivery drivers could automatically fit into this traffic, nor is it clear how many real positions the fleets can absorb, which leaves open the possibility that some of these self-employed workers will be left out of the system. The threat of ‘the full weight of the law’. The background of this movement refers to a clash that came from behind. In October 2025, the Ministry of Labor raised the tone and waived the possibility of resorting to criminal proceedings if Uber Eats did not rectify its hiring model. The vice president and minister, Yolanda Díaz, was explicit in warning that “Uber (Eats) is not going to fool the Government of Spain, and I can already tell you that the weight of the law will fall on this company,” in reference to the use of false self-employed workers. A mirror in the sector. The Uber Eats movement does not occur in a vacuum. Glovo announced its change of model in Spain in December 2024 and operates fully with salaried delivery drivers from mid-2025while the criminal process continues against its top leader, accused of a crime against workers’ rights. Just Eat, for its part, stayed the course and persisted in its employee model. In this context, Uber Eats had remained the great exception, with a hybrid scheme that continued to combine fleets and freelancers. From now on, the focus shifts from the announcement to its actual landing. Uber Eats says it wants to put an end to pending litigation and facilitate a “fair process for everyone,” but it will be practical execution that will determine the extent of the turnaround. It remains to be seen how the transition from the self-employed to the fleets is articulated, how many delivery drivers manage to fit into that step and if the new scheme manages to dissipate the conflicts that have accompanied the sector in recent years. Images | Robert Anasch | appshunter.io In Xataka | The “absent recipient” trick: why delivery people mark your package as undelivered even if you were at home

Ukraine has updated the nation’s bloodiest game. Eliminating Russians is now the closest thing to “ordering an Uber”

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In the month of May, a unprecedented merger between military technology and video game logic. Ukraine had launched a reward system which awarded its soldiers points for killing Russian troops or destroying their vehicles, as long as these acts were verified by drone video recordings. That system, a kind from “Amazon military”has been updated with drones as protagonists. A real shooter. The now called “Army of Drones Bonus System” that has emerged in Ukraine presents itself on the surface as a incentive platform which includes the aesthetics and mechanics of video games (scores, ‘leaderboards’, online stores and rewards) but at its core is an operational transformation: an institutionalized scheme that quantifies casualties, observation successes and logistical achievements to translate them into real resources (drones, autonomous vehicles, electronic warfare systems) through the internal store call Brave1. Born a little over a year ago and accelerated in recent months until passing from 95 to 400 units participants, the system already exhibits strong effects on combat (according to official figures, 18,000 Russian casualties attributable to actions linked to the system in a single month) and has expanded its radius of action beyond the air attack to reconnaissance, artillery and logistics missions, incorporating into military practice notions of competition, internal market and performance metrics that were previously foreign to the art of war. Mechanics and logic. The program architecture works with clear and convertible rules– Each credited action (from eliminating an enemy combatant to capturing a prisoner to destroying a drone operator) awards points that can be exchanged for materiel in Brave1which creates a feedback loop where operational success is transformed into material capacity to continue fighting. The update of the score table (for example, doubling points for killing infantry or setting 120 points for capturing a prisoner) reveals the system’s ability to reorient incentives based on strategic priorities and political needs, and at the same time evidences a commodification of efficiency: life and death pass through a technical-economic threshold that converts lethal decisions into a cost-benefit function. This internal economy alters the microdecision of the combatant and resituates logistics and acquisition within the tactical space itself, with the Brave1 store acting as a war market that prioritizes allocation by competitive merit. Screenshot of the rewards system Automation and AI. The system is not limited to accounting, integrate tools technologies that change the very nature of target selection and engagement. Drones partially controlled by algorithms that suggest targets and correct the terminal phase of the trajectory represent a step towards lethal automation, while practices such as “Uber targeting” They demonstrate how consumerist and geospatial interfaces have been converted for war uses. Thus, marking a point on a map and triggering a remote impact is the operational translation of the everyday gesture. to request a transport. The video proof requirement To obtain points, it also generates a vast operational database that feeds institutional learning: what objectives were achieved, with what platform, from what distance and how the enemy defense behaved. That visual and metric file facilitates dissemination of techniques between units and accelerates innovation from below, with real effects on tactics and doctrine. Psychological effects. The Guardian said that, beyond the material and the technical, the system produces a kind of emotional breakdown: Senior officials recognize that the process of assigning a numerical value to human life has ended up turning violence into technical, “practical” and “emotionless” work. At the same time, gamification produces camaraderie effects and competition that, according to the commanders, are healthy and encourages discipline and learning between peers. However, this same dynamic can generate operational biases (prioritizing high-scoring objectives over tactically relevant objectives, or the temptation of operations with low effectiveness but high cumulative performance) that distort strategic coherence. Implications and extension. The Ukrainian experience shows that incentive principles can be transferred to other areas: artillery that receives points for valid hits, reconnaissance that earns rewards for identifying targets, and logistics that scores the use of autonomous vehicles instead of human convoys. This extension transforms the war ecosystem into a set of internal markets where tactical-technological innovation is quickly monetized and scaled, forcing planners a double urgency: exploit the immediate advantages of the system without losing strategic coherence and design ethical and operational countermeasures that prevent internal competition from fragmenting the priorities of the military effort. And ethics? It’s the big question. Ethically, the commodification of violence raises profound questions about responsibility, proportionality and war crimes: Who responds when a score induces an action that violates humanitarian law? The appropriation of AI for target selection also introduces the question of attribution of responsibility between human operators, algorithms and the chain of command. Strategically, converting equipment gain into the primary source of replenishment aims to create dependency loops that, in logistical wear and tear scenarios, discourage long-term wear and tear operations that are necessary in the short term for larger objectives. Score the violence. The “Army of Drones Bonus System” represents a mutation relevant to the way motivation, acquisition and innovation are organized in contemporary warfare: it incorporates market logicpoint economies and automation technologies that increase lethality and efficiency, while eroding moral frameworks and opening new vectors of risk. Its contribution is undeniable in terms of capacity and adaptation, but its expansion urgently claim a framework that does not yet exist at national or international level. In the background, a long doubt in this species Amazon military: that what is celebrated today as tactical innovation can tomorrow become a structural source of insecurity and lack of moral control on the battlefield. Image | Ministry of Defense Ukraine, Ministry of Defense of Ukraine In Xataka | An imperceptible hum is wreaking havoc in Ukraine. When it arrives there is no turning back: the Russians are already everywhere In Xataka | The Ukrainian army has been asked what it urgently needs. The answer was clear: no missiles or drones, just cars

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