Startup offers free home cleaning—if it can record it all for robot training
SMRTR summary
Free home cleaning sounds like a dream, but there's a catch, even if the company says there isn't.
A New York City startup called MicroAGI is offering free professional home cleanings through its app, Shift. The real business? Collecting data to train robots. The cleanings give the company what it calls "first-person cleaning data," while the app's primary function is recruiting people to wear a camera headstrap and record everyday household tasks for $20 an hour.
US general manager Harry Kilberg claims the platform already pays "tens of thousands of people" across 15 countries to record daily chores and work.
MicroAGI joins a growing list of startups harvesting human movement data to fuel AI and robotics development. The company is aggressively targeting NYC students, teachers, and delivery workers, with expansion to London, Munich, and Zurich reportedly on the horizon.
And those "free" cleanings? Miss the appointment, and you may be billed anyway.
SMRTR provides this summary for quick context. The original article belongs to Ars Technica.
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