Tech companies desperately want to film you doing chores Startups are paying individuals for real-world data, such as footage of domestic chores, to train robots, as understanding the physical world is a significant challenge for AI development. Companies like Shift and Pronto are offering free services or hiring gig workers to capture this essential data, which is crucial for developing AI that can perform physical tasks. This practice, while offering value in return for data, mirrors historical trends of companies exchanging services or discounts for user data.

• AI startups are paying people for real-world data to train robots, often in exchange for free services like home cleaning.
• Robots require extensive data to understand the physical world, which is more challenging to acquire than digital data.
• Companies like Shift and Pronto are collecting footage of domestic labor, while others like Human Archive use gig workers with camera caps.
• Some companies create ‘staged data farms’ where workers repeatedly perform simple physical tasks for data collection.
• Data from robots in the field and remote workers assisting them is also used for AI training.
• This practice of trading data for services or value is not new, but the type of data being collected is novel. Continue reading https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/940007/ai-companies-will-pay-for-robot-training-data