Nagireddy Sriramyachandra is 25 years old and lives in Chennai, in southern India's Tamil Nadu state. Like millions of housewives in India, she spends her days on household chores. But unlike most, she gets paid for it — by artificial intelligence companies.
With a smartphone strapped to her forehead, she films herself slicing mangoes, folding clothes, washing dishes, making coffee, preparing sandwiches. These first-person recordings, called "egocentric data," are invaluable for tech companies teaching robots how to move and behave like humans in the real world.
"Who else will give you 250 rupees an hour just for doing housework?" she said from her kitchen. "I may get a robot myself in the future."
Sriramyachandra is one of a growing army of thousands of AI system trainers in India, the world's most populous country. The humanoid robot market is booming — Morgan Stanley predicts there could be over a billion in use by 2050, mostly for industrial and commercial purposes. Teaching them basic human movements requires thousands of hours of real human footage.
At Objectways, the AI data company she works with, workers in a Karur district factory wear head-mounted cameras and smart glasses. Eight people at a local textile factory spend their days attaching labels to caps and ironing cloth bags while being recorded. In studio apartments built for filming, trainers fold towels in 90 different positions on a bed, arrange pencil sharpeners and water bottles in patterns, and record with depth-sensor cameras.
"It blares 'hands not detected' when I'm not recording properly," Sriramyachandra said, sending recordings via a special app to the company.
For now, this work provides income that would otherwise not exist. Rani N., a 21-year-old engineering graduate who films herself folding towels at Objectways, calls the job "tolerable" but says she feels like she's "always wearing a camera."
The broader question hangs in the air: by teaching robots how to do human work, are these workers training their own replacements? Ponni, a 55-year-old flower garland maker in Bengaluru who was also paid to wear a head camera, put it simply: "The next generation… who might have to do work similar to mine — they will face a problem."