Dishwashing for Dollars: The AI Connection
A video showing a woman washing dishes while recording her activity with a phone on a tripod has gone viral on social media. The video was uploaded by Instagram user @mamakngebolang, Itha Siburian Pandjaitan. In the video, Itha addresses doubts about how a simple task like dishwashing could earn dollar payments. ‘It’s not Instagram paying, but an AI company,’ she said. At first glance, Itha’s actions seem like regular household chores. However, her recorded movements are actually used as training data for artificial intelligence (AI) systems. The platform referred to by Itha is Mindrift, a crowdsourcing service that allows anyone to contribute to training AI and humanoid robot models by recording daily activities. Demand for such roles has increased with the rapid growth of AI chatbots and humanoid robots, which require a deep understanding of human behaviour. According to CBS News reports, AI companies are actively recruiting workers from diverse backgrounds to enhance AI intelligence and interaction quality for more natural responses. Notably, AI trainer roles are not limited to engineers or programmers. AI companies also welcome screenwriters, doctors, lawyers, photo editors, musicians, and those with niche hobbies to participate in AI training. Tasks for AI trainers vary widely, from evaluating chatbot responses and crafting prompts to correcting AI output errors and teaching more human-like communication patterns. For humanoid robot development, some trainers are required to record daily activities such as cooking, folding clothes, sweeping floors, and washing dishes. These videos are then used by AI to learn the nuances of human movement. Besides Mindrift, several similar platforms now offer AI trainer and AI tutor jobs. Well-known names include Outlier AI, Toloka, Scale AI, DataAnnotation, and Remotasks. These platforms typically hire freelancers to help train AI models for major tech companies. Tasks range from writing articles, assessing AI responses, training AI coding capabilities, to recording physical activities for humanoid robots.