Indian workers training AI robots to take their jobs

https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2026/06/14/2003859050

Publish Date: 2026-06-13 12:00:00

By Aishwarya Kumar /
AFP, KARUR, India

With a smartphone strapped to her head, Indian housewife Nagireddy Sriramyachandra films herself slicing mangoes to train artificial intelligence (AI)-powered robots to take on household jobs in the future.

Earning just over US$2 for an hour of video, her mundane recordings are invaluable for global tech companies teaching machines how to move like humans in the real world.

The 25-year-old is one of a growing army of thousands of AI system trainers in the world’s most populous country.

Photo: AFP

“Who else will give you 250 rupees an hour just for doing housework?” said Sriramyachandra from her kitchen in Chennai in southern India’s Tamil Nadu state.

“I may get a robot myself in the future,” she added.

AI chatbots and image generators crunch reams of digital data, but building systems to navigate real-life environments is more challenging.

Developers think feeding first-person footage, called “egocentric data,” into specialized AI models would help robots copy humans.

Some AI trainers work at home, others in factories or specialized studios — using video glasses, head-mounted cameras and motion sensors.

“It blares ‘hands not detected’ when I’m not recording properly,” said Sriramyachandra, who sends recordings via a special app to the AI data company Objectways.

The firm, which has offices in India and the US, lists Fortune 500 multinationals as clients. It works with Amazon SageMaker, a platform for machine learning models.

The humanoid robot market is booming, with investment bank Morgan Stanley said there could be more than 1 billion in use by 2050, mostly…

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