Indian workers train humanoid robots for $2/hour

What happened

Thousands of AI trainers in India, including 25-year-old Nagireddy Sriramyachandra, are recording first-person video of themselves performing everyday activities—slicing mangoes, folding clothes, making coffee—using head-mounted cameras. These recordings are sent to AI data companies like Objectways, which supply the footage to global tech firms and platforms such as Amazon SageMaker to train humanoid robots to move and act like humans in real-world environments. Trainers earn around 250 rupees per hour (just over two dollars).

Why it matters

Building AI systems that can navigate physical spaces requires actual video of human movement, not just digital text or images. India has positioned itself as a global hub for AI data collection and processing, and this emerging field is creating new jobs—at least for now. However, the work itself highlights a paradox: workers are training the very robots designed to eventually replace human labor in household and commercial tasks.

What to watch

Investment bank Morgan Stanley predicts there could be over a billion humanoid robots in use by 2050, mostly for industrial and commercial purposes. Objectways, which employs workers from Tamil Nadu, already lists Fortune 500 multinationals as clients. The company's CEO notes that robots are being trained for specific tasks like sandwich-making and coffee preparation, roles currently performed by humans.