Indonesians Go Viral for Paid Dishwashing to Train AI – Source Revealed

Indonesians have gone viral on social media after sharing videos of themselves being paid to wash dishes. The content was shared by Itha Siburian Pandjaitan via her Instagram account @mamakngebolang, which explains how everyday tasks like dishwashing can generate income.

The purpose of these videos, however, is to train artificial intelligence (AI). In a Q&A video uploaded on 12 May, she clarified: ‘This isn’t just dishwashing work, guys. We’re training the AI to wash dishes. The real value is in training the AI, not just washing dishes.’

The AI company involved is Mindrift, a crowdsourcing platform that recruits individuals to help train AI models and humanoid robots through daily activities. This is not unusual, as the AI industry’s explosion has led to new high-paying jobs such as AI trainers.

Generative AI developers are now hiring people from diverse backgrounds—including creative writers, doctors, and chess enthusiasts—to improve chatbot accuracy and intelligence.

This phenomenon has emerged as large language models (LLMs) have absorbed most available public data online, prompting AI firms to refine models through more specific and in-depth human input.

‘This is one of the fastest-growing job categories today,’ said Christine Cruzvergara, Chief Education Strategy Officer at Handshake, cited by CBS News on Tuesday, 25 May 2026.