Being paid to do routine activities, such as pouring yourself a glass of water, sounds more than surprising. However, for some people India –not all, as will be seen below- this is a reality that arises from the advancement of new technologies.
It is that technology companies foresee the existence of robots that in the future they can carry out the housework. For this they require Artificial Intelligence trainers.
In India – the most populous country in the world since 2023, the year it surpassed China – thousands of workers teach AI systems to move like human beings. It happens that if it is the real world, the expertise is still off screen.
Wanted: first-person experiences
In these compilations of life, a person can earn up to two dollars per hour without leaving your house. In exchange, he must place a cell phone on his head and make videos while, for example, cutting a fruit.
That material is sent to global technology companies, specialized in the use of «egocentric» datathat is, in the first person.
However, this money that someone dedicated to cooking and daily order receives goes beyond the particular. It is part of tests with human employment that have the Asian country in a central place.
“(In India) Every day, millions of workers sew garments, assemble products, sort goods and perform tasks that robotics companies want machines to learn,” said Puneet Jindal, founder of Labellerr AI -one of the many companies involved in the field- to the medium The Guardian.
However, there is a problem in bringing this innovation to the workplace. In the case of factory employeessome of them must put on the headband without receiving extra payment for such action. This was told by the aforementioned British media, which toured factories in which the concern about consent remains latent.
“It seems like a worker agrees to wear a camera, but can he really refuse without fear of consequences for his job?” asked Geeta Thatra, a member of the foundation. Work Fair and Free.
Motion sensors, smart glasses and head cameras
With the collected materials – for which rooms and studios are set – it is hoped that, one day, humanoid robots can imitate us more accurately. Even in construction tasks
In this way, what Indian workers do with smart glasseshead-mounted cameras, and/or motion sensors on their hands and legs, further increases the rise of this sector in the market.
By 2050, it is estimated that there will be more than 1 billion humanoid robots in use, according to the bank Morgan Stanley. Meanwhile, we can already see spectacular scenes of such machines doing Kung Fu o running marathons, including falls.
«Data annotation» and low costs
Once the captures are made, the recordings are “cleaned”, that is, the shares are separated from the fund in which it is located. This is called “data annotation”a job for which USA a company can pay 30 dollars an hourJindal asserted.
However, costs change a lot in the territories where the AI trainer army is located.
In MadagascarFor example, more than 100,000 people outline images and classify objects so that AI can make better suggestions to users.
In that nation of africa cheap labor is seen in what David receives. The Malagasy wins one euro for every three hours in front of his computer, according to what he said in an interview with Arte.tv.
In addition to the low remuneration, precariousness appears, which is seen in another testimony of the documentary available at Youtube. “I’ve had precarious contracts for five years… And it’s very boring because we just click, click, click,” he said sadly.
The young Indian woman also had that feeling. Rani N.even though he does not work in front of the screen. Every day he makes ninety recordings, in which he must fold towels with a video recorder on his forehead.
The shots last four minutes, and although he finds it somewhat “tolerable,” he feels like “he always had a camera tied to his head,” according to what he told AFP.
