Overview
- On-the-ground reporting shows Angelenos across neighborhoods recording everyday tasks with head- and wrist-mounted cameras to teach robots human movements and context switching.
- Instawork managers hand out phone-mount headbands for assignments that pay about $80 for two hours of footage, and the company’s CEO says some roles can reach roughly $40 an hour.
- Startup Sunain ships custom wrist cameras, counts more than 1,400 contributors in Los Angeles, and says it has 25,000 contributors across 30 countries capturing detailed hand and body motion.
- Industry demand is accelerating as Encord raised $60 million, Scale AI amassed 100,000 hours of robotics footage, and Micro1 employs contributors in 60 countries for household-task recordings.
- Workers cite interruptions, discomfort, and rejected videos but report meaningful side income, while critics warn the work is extractive and could speed automation that replaces jobs.