More US workers wear body cameras to help train robots

In short: Some American workers are getting paid to record their jobs with body cameras, and the videos are being used to help teach robots how to do real-world tasks.

What's going on

The New York Times reported on October 16 that robotics companies are paying workers to film their daily work from a first-person view. One example is a barber in the Texas area who wears a vest with five cameras while cutting hair. Another is a nail technician who recorded about 10 hours of appointments.

After the recording, the footage is annotated. That means people go through the video and add labels about what is happening, like which tool is being used and how a hand moves. Those labeled clips become training data, which is like practice material that helps a robot learn patterns from real examples.

This kind of first-person video is often called egocentric data. It shows what the worker sees while folding, packing, or preparing food, similar to how a driving student learns faster by watching from the driver’s seat instead of from the sidewalk.

What to watch

This work can provide gig income, but it also creates a conflict. Workers may be helping build systems that could eventually reduce the need for the same jobs they do today. One participant questioned whether the pay matches the long-term value of the data.

Instawork, which helps supply recording equipment, said the goal is not simply to replace workers. The company argues robots could fill dangerous roles or jobs employers cannot staff, and that new work could appear in supervising and maintaining robots. A key open question is whether these recording gigs turn into stable opportunities, or mainly speed up automation.

Source: NYTimes