Gig workers earn $3 to $10 an hour recording themselves for robot training
Workers worldwide make videos of household tasks with head-mounted cameras. These videos train humanoid robots on everyday movements.
Mohamad Dunggio is a 23-year-old in Indonesia. He spent four hours recording himself washing dishes.
He wore a phone strapped to his head. Robotics companies in Argentina, India and the US paid him between $3 and $10 an hour.
Dunggio is one of thousands of gig workers sending training videos to the robotics industry. These first-person videos show tasks from the worker's point of view.
Hands stay visible so robots can learn how movements work. Researchers use this data to teach robots to work in different homes: different dishes, different layouts, different clothes.
Dana Kulić, a robotics professor at Monash University, says this data helps robots learn like AI language models do. Human videos cost less than robot-made videos.
Privacy and consent concerns remain.
Why it mattersThe robots we might use tomorrow are trained by low-wage workers. These workers often don't know how their videos will be used or sold.
AustraliaAustralian robotics research depends on this global gig workforce; questions about worker treatment and data rights will shape how local companies source training data.
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