I Spent a Week Recording Myself Doing Chores for Money. Who's the Robot Now?
Key takeaways
- 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.
- 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.
- “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.
Why this matters: a development in AI with implications for how people work, create, and decide.
Photo-Illustration: Jobanny Cabrera; Getty Images Comment Loader Save Story Save this story Comment Loader Save Story Save this story 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 i Phone 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 (I’m not usually contributing to mass datasets when I put away my jockstraps). 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. This style of recording, called egocentric data by the industry, 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.