Ahh yes, that self-driving tech that they totally 100% developed on their own and didn't steal from anyone else, right?

what difference does it make to me whether they stole from waymo or not? im not going to white-knight for google.

innocent until proven guilty, btw. some journalist writing something in a newspaper is not proof.

The difference being that if they were as unethical with other companies' tech as they were when expanding into markets and failing to protect their employees from harassment, then it could be an existential problem for the company. If their future relies on self-driving tech, which they never get a chance to implement because the only tech they have is stolen and they thus can't use it, they're fucked.

And the relevant legal standard here would be "preponderance of evidence", not "innocent until proven guilty" (which is a right for individual citizens in criminal trials). Corporations aren't fully people yet.

drivers could be helping make better maps, but I doubt that uber is able to use a cell phone to really create a usable training set for self driving. If every drivers car had cameras and lidar, that would be different.

im not saying that the plan is particularly well executed.