Humans are getting paid to teach robots how to do chores

Before robots can wash dishes, fold laundry, or mop floors, they need humans to show them how.

I recently met up with Salvador Arciga, who picks up flexible gigs through Instawork training AI-powered robots. Wearing a head-mounted camera, he records himself performing everyday tasks while robotics companies use the footage to teach machines how humans move and interact with objects.

The company says more than 20,000 workers have already been certified for robotics-related tasks, making it one of its fastest-growing categories.

It’s a new type of gig work that didn’t exist a few years ago, and one example of how the rise of AI and robotics is creating jobs even as it aims to automate them.