Indian Workers Are Paid $2 An Hour To Film Themselves, So Robots Can Learn Their Jobs
Robotics companies racing to build machines that can weld steel and stitch shoes are turning to an unlikely workforce to teach them how, ordinary Indian laborers filming their own daily tasks, effectively training the very robots that could eventually replace them. Bloomberg's feature, alongside reporting from AFP, Al Jazeera, and Dawn, documents how thousands of Indian workers are now strapping smartphones and head cameras to themselves to capture first-person footage for AI-powered robotics firms competing to collect this valuable training data. The pay is modest but steady, workers earn around 250 rupees, roughly $2.60, for an hour of recorded footage. Chennai housewife Nagireddy Sriramyachandra, 25, described filming herself slicing mangoes in her own kitchen, telling AFP and Al Jazeera she takes the work simply because nobody else pays that rate just for doing housework, adding half-jokingly that she might end up owning a robot herself someday. At a Karur textile factory in Ta...