I Spent a Week Recording Myself Doing Chores for Money. Who's the Robot Now?

Household tasks like cooking, laundry, and tidying can be converted into training data for humanoid robots. First-person videos captured with head- or chest-mounted cameras can provide detailed examples of fine motor actions, such as slicing food while recording all fingers, then stopping the recording. This egocentric data is increasingly needed because hyperspecific close-ups help AI models perform real-world tasks more accurately. Companies seek large volumes of such footage, including hundreds of millions of hours from third-party suppliers. Data collection marketplaces pay individuals to record themselves doing chores, with the goal of enabling robots to eventually handle dishwashing and other repetitive household work.

"I am no longer a mere human being. I am a conduit of reality, a medium of messages. I hold a knife in my hand and slice into an organic cucumber, hunching so the iPhone strapped to my forehead can capture all 10 fingers. I throw the slices into a salad bowl and end the recording. Somewhere, a baby robot is a tiny bit smarter."

"This was my existence for a full week last month as I performed data collection from the comfort of my apartment, teaching humanoids how to scrub dishes, fold laundry, and pour drinks, among other menial tasks. If robots are ever going to live with us and help out around the house, they need to develop fine motor skills. I performed my household chores with pride and I was glad to make some money too."

"First-person videos, shot with a camera attached to a person's head or chest, are a growing need as more companies attempt to build bots and improve their AI models. Even though the internet is full of scrapeable videos, hyperspecific clips-like thousands of close-ups showing hands pouring water into a glass without spilling-can be critical for fine-tuning machines to excel at real-world tasks."

"Egocentric data collection is in such high demand that some investors estimate leading companies will purchase hundreds of millions of hours from third-party suppliers over the next few years. "I want every person on the planet to be recording themselves doing the dishes," says Avi Patel, the 22-year-old founder of data collection marketplace Kled. "That's going to make a robot so that you never have to do the dishes ever again.""

Read at WIRED