I Received a Free Meal from a Personal Chef—Who Filmed Everything to Teach Robots

When private the chef sent by Shift arrived at my house to cook three-course meal, he was already ready to write. He walked through my front door wearing a baseball cap with a white screen camera attached to the brim.

I signed up for a free lunch in exchange for all the activities being filmed and posted as training data. As chef Ollie unpacked his luggage and started on the gazpacho, the hat camera recorded his hand movements, with the aim of using this data to help design good robot-who have culinary expertise.

It’s all part of the growth boom egocentric data collection-writing the movements of a person’s hands based on the person’s perspective. Shift made waves earlier this year by offering free services in New York City under a similar scheme: Let Shift hire people from your home and, in exchange, you get free work. The company grew in San Francisco by offering free home-cooked meals. If, in the near future, I can buy a skilled person to live with, I hope his knife skills improve.

Shift is part of a large German initiative Microagwhich focuses on putting robots into real life. “The goal of Shift is twofold. First, let people join the AI ​​economy,” says Microagi CEO Bercan Kilic. “The other part is to connect all the people with the governments, from today to more.”

In the short term, Kilic sees this as a way to create a marketplace where contractors can create videos for revenue and help improve quality. Types of AI. Looking to the future, he believes that emerging technological innovations could usher in a new, more mainstream era abundant wealth.

This year, I spent many hours with iPhone strapped to my headtrying to understand this growing trend of the gig economy. I have recorded my hand movements DoorDash while I’m scrambling eggs for breakfast and typing my fingers and tying my shoelaces, over and over again, while resuming data collection. Shift also offers a similar setup of gig work for people who want to record and sell their knowledge. Although my payouts were low, I had success in the past by doing my own moves, to some extent, on other platforms. I was curious about what it would feel like to be on the other side of the camera, for once.

Free Dinner

Shift chef uniforms combine restaurant workers’ clothing with a cyborg look. Ollie, who was the cook, was wearing a white shirt and trousers with a brown apron around his body. The camera attached to his helmet was similar to a GoProand the white wire that goes through the top and down the back. The wire was connected to a smartphone, where these lunch recordings were saved. It wobbled a little while it was cooking.

I’ve never had a private chef in my cramped apartment, so I felt a sense of wonder as I stood in the kitchen as he prepared the gazpacho and began slicing the trumpet mushrooms. The finesse and skill on display (and filmed) with his knife skills goes beyond what my little chops can teach a robot to cook. My frustration only increased when I remembered that everything was being recorded. Me sthey have to heat up the oven too much before it dies as robot training data. Although it is robots don’t worry a bit, my personality will still win.

The house smelled amazing as Ollie went on a grand adventure, cooked fish and zucchini soup, and I began to relax. Similar to how I respond when people use Meta AI glasses to write in publicAt first I was cold because of direct exposure to technology. But after I ate at my dinner table, I took a closer look at these recordings. My kitchen would be just one drop in a big ocean of data for training a robot. I started getting frustrated and depressed The humanoid future.